Crackhead II: A Novel (3 page)

T.J. couldn’t believe how easy it was for his father to reject him. He felt the sting of his abandonment as he grew older, but even though he was hurt, T.J. never showed his emotions. If his father didn’t give a fuck, why should he?

After living comfortably in Philly, Sonya left with her son and bounced around from Jersey to Connecticut to Boston, then to New York for the next eight years until she went back to the place she called home before Thomas James turned her life upside down. In the Boyonton Avenue tenements in Southview, a good kid would certainly fall victim to his environment, but Sonya worked three jobs to ensure that T.J. would have an education that would take him out of the projects.

When T.J. was in middle school, he met Simone. Simone was a chocolate cutie who had a mother and father at home. Although an only child, Simone was a well-rounded good girl. She wasn’t spoiled. She was just comfortable and had to work for the luxuries her parents provided her. T.J. and Simone were each other’s first . . . first kiss, first time in love, and the first to lose their virginity to one another. When they met T.J., her parents weren’t too accepting of him. They tolerated him because Simone said she was in love, but they felt T.J. didn’t know what his true identity was and that was something he needed to embrace.

When he moved from Boston, her parents were happy, but T.J. and Simone maintained a long-distance relationship. Boston University was not a coincidence. They were going to be together; but as they spent more time with each other, Simone realized that T.J. wasn’t the same person she was in love with before. Something was different about him—and she really didn’t
like it. Simone had fallen prey to his bomb sex game so they continued to fuck, even during their breakups, but she made it perfectly clear to T.J. that she was fair game for anyone else and it would only be a matter of time before she found that person.

T.J., on the other hand, thought she was joshing and didn’t trip off of what she said. Only because she was still breaking him off on a regular basis did he let her believe that someone else could pull her; but if someone came between them, he wasn’t going to let her go that easily.

T.J. walked around the Registration Office to scope out the incoming freshman females. He enjoyed the array of women—some fly, some not—but when Laci walked into the office and stood in the line, she was all he could focus on.

For some reason, she looked familiar to him, so he walked up to her and attempted a conversation.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

With all the chatter, Laci didn’t acknowledge him because she couldn’t hear him. He repeated himself and she looked at him.

“I’m sorry, are you talking to me?” she asked, innocently. The registration line was exceptionally long and the office was crowded with what seemed like hundreds of people.

This was the first time Laci had been in a crowd since she left the South Bronx. She looked at the young man in front of her and shyly smiled.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” he asked. “You look awfully familiar.” Even after all she had been through during her crack addiction, Laci was still fly. She stood 5′4″ with long black good hair. She was light-skinned because of her mixed heritage and had dark, moody eyes. Laci was thick in all the right places, with a slim waist and B-cup breasts. Her body was bangin’ and she had a funky fresh style to match.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said politely, shaking her head.
Men and their lines,
she thought.

“Seriously, I know you from somewhere,” T.J. continued to pry. “I could never forget your face.” He lightly pointed toward her.

“I’m sure if you knew me, you would have remembered,” Laci snapped, “and so would I, so please don’t step to me with that lame-ass pickup line.” She thought he was trying to touch her, but he wasn’t.

Laci was surprised at her reaction. The thirty days she spent at rehab had strengthened her as an individual. She had learned to love life again but felt that all people were on some bullshit unless they proved otherwise. The guy who stood before her, she felt, was on a whole ’nother level of bullshit because in her eyes, he was a wannabe and she didn’t want to be bothered.

“Now please leave before my man comes.” Laci began to feel uncomfortable and hoped Dink would join her soon. He was currently meeting with an advisor.

She turned around and faced the direction of the line again.

“So what? I don’t care if you got a man; shit, I got a gal. I was just asking where I knew you from and trying to make conversation,” the young man retorted. “I can’t stand y’all stuck-up bitches.”

“Good,” she snapped back. “That means leave then.”

Just then, Dink coolly strolled up. “Baby, is there a problem?” He looked at T.J., then back to Laci.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle,” she told him confidently and planted a nice, healthy kiss on his lips to show anyone else who could have been watching that she was taken.

T.J. didn’t like how she played him, but he knew that they would eventually cross paths again. Next time, she’d be the one getting played, and that was a promise.

B
Y THE END
of this class,” Mr. Giencanna spoke, “you may or may not think differently about your religious beliefs, but I guarantee you that by the end of this class,” he poked his index finger against the podium, “you will be impartial and look at situations that may arise in everyday life objectively.” He emphasized the last word.

“So, are you saying that we don’t need to believe in God?” asked the same girl who’d answered the first question. The class looked at the girl, and then at T.J., who sat next to her. He remained silent in a noble attempt to not embarrass himself any further. Dink had had a feeling that question would come up. He was just glad that the girl asked it, rather than T.J. running off at the mouth.

“No, I’m not saying that,” Mr. Giencanna confirmed. “Religion is a very controversial subject—one of which we will only touch on in this class. Everyone has his or her own beliefs; however, academically examining religion will make you think. There are many religions—Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism, to name a few. Each of these is an ancient established religion
with its own unique beliefs and doctrines. Who are we to say what is right and what is wrong? Right now, your answers are very subjective . . . meaning, one-sided. Once you look at the big picture,” he raised his arms in the air in a fan-like motion, “you will become more objective and be able to express your objectivity with a valid argument.”

Dink smiled and nodded his head.
For a white guy, Mr. G. an ole G,
he thought to himself.

Mr. Giencanna then looked up at the clock and saw that he had thirty seconds left.

“Let me leave you with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers, René Descartes. ‘Living without philosophizing is exactly like having one’s eyes closed without ever trying to open them; and the pleasure of seeing everything which our sight reveals is in no way comparable to the satisfaction accorded by knowledge of the things which philosophy enables us to discover.’ ” He stood up and walked in front of the podium. “Class dismissed.”

Dink got up out of his seat and flung his large backpack over his shoulder. “Let me get that for you,” he told Laci as she stuffed her notebook into her backpack.

As people filed out of the lecture hall, a few students walked up to Dink, welcoming him to Boston University. Some patted him on his back, introduced themselves, then headed to their next class. There were those who ignored him, but there was one who actually stopped to talk.

“Yo man, that was some shit you laid out there,” a tall, toffee-colored man said.

Dink observed the man’s long, slender frame, clean-shaven face, and short hair that looked like it might have been naturally curly instead of the Jheri curls that most folks were
rockin’ back in the Bronx. He wore a red and white Adidas sweat suit with matching red and white kicks. He also had a large diamond earring in his left ear, along with a herringbone chain that didn’t look like a knockoff.
Dude got a lil’ grip,
Dink said to himself.

“Hi,” he extended his hand, “I’m Steven, but my friends call me Slim.” Dink suppressed a grin. The name “Slim” fit Steven to a tee. He had to stand around 6 feet 8 inches tall and couldn’t have weighed more than a buck fifty.

Dink reached out to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Daryl, and this is my girl, Laci.”

Steven smiled at her and shook her hand.

Just then, a voice bellowed, “Slim . . . what up, nigga, you comin’?”

Dink, Laci, and Slim looked over at where the voice came from. It was T.J., and he was headed toward them.

T.J. stood about six feet tall and had a nice muscular build, with dark hair that he kept cut close to his head. He had amber-colored hypnotic eyes and shapely lips that he got from his mother’s side of the family. He got his coloring, strong-angled jawline, and keen nose from his father’s side. T.J. was exceptionally handsome. He dressed in the latest trendy clothing but still stuck out like a sore thumb. He was standing firm, as if he had a point to prove. T.J. wasn’t going to back down from Dink.

“Aye, yo,” Dink called out to T.J. He wrestled with what he was about to do next. Daryl Highsmith wasn’t one to apologize, especially when he’d done nothing wrong, but he realized that he had to be the bigger man. “Hey, about what happened earlier,” he looked at T.J. and stood in front of him, “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I was just—”

“Embarrass me?” T.J. interrupted in a shocked tone, looking Dink up and down. “If that’s all you got, shit . . . you need to
go back where you came from, learn the shit again, then come at me.”

“What did you say?” Dink questioned.

Laci looked at Dink and noticed that he instinctively clenched his fists and tightened his jaw. She knew that even approaching T.J. was a big step for him, so she quickly grabbed his hand and kissed it.

From his observation, Dink saw that at twenty-two years old, he was probably the oldest student in class. Although he was trying to rap to T.J. man to man, he’d let him get that one off, but that was the only thing he was gonna let slide. Dink had come too far to get disrespected by a bitch-ass nigga . . . a white one at that.

T.J. played the game right because he was pissed. He was tired of the rejection and disrespect he received. Never in his short college life had anyone challenged him the way Dink had in class and he didn’t like that. “Let’s get outta Dodge, man.” He looked at Slim. “We got some shit to take care of at the frat house.” T.J. walked away.

Slim watched T.J. slink away, then looked back at Dink. He knew his boy was embarrassed. As second-year students at Boston University, T.J. and Slim were taking additional bullshit introductory electives just to keep their GPAs up, but they had more nefarious reasons for taking intro courses—the freshman hotties. They knew the incoming female freshmen would be fly, and provide a new breed of bitches to dip up in. Freshmen always loved attention from the upper-classmen, and both T.J. and Slim were more than willing to oblige.

Slim and T.J. were both products of broken homes and found college life an easy way to escape their pasts. They both paid their own way because their families couldn’t afford it. Unlike
T.J., Slim did it the hard way—he worked two part-time jobs and took out student loans.

When T.J. had seen Dink that day in the Registration Office, there was something about him that told him he was more than that squirrel trying to stack nuts . . . he was the real deal, and now here this nigga was, in college, checking him.

T.J. never thought he’d encounter anyone with Dink’s ability to think in a Philosophy 101 class. Dink was on a whole ’nother level, and although he was a threat to him, that wasn’t what bothered T.J.; that was a mere obstacle in his eyes. What really got him was that Dink had the undeniably finest chick on campus, and from what he saw she wasn’t going too far.

“Don’t trip offa him,” Slim said to Dink as he nodded toward T.J. “He just hatin’. Aye, why don’t you come down to the frat house later on? You know, have a lil’ drink, shoot some pool, you know . . . hang out, see how we do it.”

“Frat house? You mean it’s more black folks here?” Dink joked.

Slim laughed. “Yeah man, it’s—”

“Excuse me,” a tall, slim, caramel-colored honey interrupted, as she brushed past Dink, Slim, and Laci. It was the same girl who’d sat next to T.J. during the lecture. She headed toward the stoically posed T.J. She shook out her shoulder-length auburn hair, then said something to him. With little resistance on his part, she led him out of the lecture hall. Just as she and T.J. got to the doorway, she turned and looked at Dink from head to toe. With a raised eyebrow and a half grin on her face, she winked, and then walked out.

“A’ight, I gotta burn out, but the offer still stands,” Slim told Dink, ignoring what had just happened.

“A’ight, cool,” Dink responded. “I just may do that.”

The two dapped, then Slim bounced and dipped out of the lecture hall.

“Let’s go,” Laci snapped, shoving her backpack into Dink’s hands.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Dink asked, noticing her attitude change.

“Did you see how that girl was looking at you?”

“Man, I wasn’t even paying attention to that chick,” Dink said. Actually, he had noticed the girl. She was stunning. Almost a dead ringer for his ex, Crystal. A shadow cast over Dink’s face because he still couldn’t get over the malicious part she’d played in Laci’s tragic summer.

Dink grabbed the backpack, put his hand in the small of Laci’s back, and escorted her out into the hallway.

“Looks like you were really into the lecture,” Laci told him, changing the subject, as they headed outside.

“Yeah, he said some stuff that was really deep.”

“You’re right—the whole good, bad, angel, God, and devil thing was something to really think about,” Laci admitted. “You and Mr. Giencanna were about to make that T.J. guy mad, though.”

They both laughed.

“Well, if you think about it, Laci, he has a point. We were brought up believing in something that we were
told
exists but in actuality, how do we know? I mean, we know that Jesus was a man who walked the earth, but how can we validate God, the devil, or angels? What about the religions that believe in God, but don’t believe in Jesus? That is truly subjective reasoning.”