Celeste looked the cop up and down. Since he wasn’t in uniform, she knew he was a detective. That was common knowledge in the ’hood.
“And,” Celeste said, moving closer to them.
“Ms. Early, you’re gonna have to get dressed and come with us,” the detective retorted. “We need to ask you some questions down at the station.”
“Questions . . . about what? My son is dead, that’s all the answers you need,” Celeste snapped, hugging herself tightly.
“Ms. Early, it’s important that you cooperate. Your baby’s autopsy and toxicology report show that he died of an overdose of heroin,” the detective said flatly, showing no emotion or respect for a grieving mother.
Celeste couldn’t react. The sedatives had her brain on slow motion. “What? No you making a mistake here officer . . . don’t nobody in here take no heroin,” Celeste said, her voice firm, yet slurred, with denial.
The other detective walked closer to her. “Well, you look pretty high right now,” he said snidely.
“I don’t get high!” Celeste growled at him.
“From the looks of things around here, it seems like you might be lying to us,” detective number one interjected. They were looking around at the cramped and junky apartment. There were clothes piled up on the couch, dishes spilling out of the sink and the furniture was old, some of it broken down. Celeste wasn’t the best at keeping a clean house, but she wasn’t on drugs.
“Oh, now being poor means I’m on heroin! I may not have much but I ain’t no dope fiend. I know ya’ll think all us mothers in the ’hood get high, but I got news for you . . . this one don’t. Ain’t no way my baby got no heroin in his system . . . I don’t even allow drugs in my damn house!” Celeste spat.
Ben felt like he was going to faint. Shit! Now they know Keon got to the drugs! Ben screamed in his mind. Now he not only had to worry about what he was going to tell Deezo about the missing package, but the cops were investigating. He felt as if he would throw up.
“Miss, you can get dressed or we can take you down like this,” the detective said, his tone nasty and demanding.
Celeste began to cry. “What about my baby? He gotta have a funeral! Ya’ll arresting me? I can’t believe this shit! I can’t even grieve for my dead child!” she screamed, shaking her head left to right.
“We want to take you down for questioning. You may also have to submit to a drug test and we’ll be back with a search warrant for the house,” the detective explained. It was as if they didn’t even care about her feelings. Celeste knew that shit meant she was not coming back home. Shaking all over, she dragged her feet towards her bedroom. One of the detectives followed her.
“Can I get dressed in peace?” she growled. He stepped back and stood outside her bedroom door while she pulled on some clothes. Celeste stepped back into the hallway with tears in her eyes. This was like her worst nightmare coming to life.
She looked at Ben with sadness and tears in her eyes. “Ben, how did this all happen?” Celeste asked.
The detectives started escorting her out of the apartment. “You got somebody to take care of him?” the detective asked Celeste, nodding at Ben.
“No, it’s just me,” she said sadly.
“C’mon boy, you gon’ have to come with us too, until we figure out whether or not your mother is coming home,” one of the detectives told Ben. Ben just stood there dumbfounded. He knew leaving his apartment with the cops wasn’t a good look. Deezo always had people watching.
“Ben, how did all of this happen?” Celeste asked again, looking at him desperate for an answer or any words that could help her figure it all out.
Ben had a simple look on his face. His mind was going a mile a minute. He was thinking about how this all happened—how it all got started.
A Sucker 4 Candy Amaleka McCall
Chapter 1
Three years earlier.
“Oh daddy, yeah, you fuck me so good! Yeah, beat this pussy up! Ohhh, I’m cumming, daddy!” Celeste screamed in ecstasy as yet another one of her boyfriends laid the pipe.
Ben lay in his bed with his arm over his eyes listening to his mother fuck once again. This was nothing new to him. His mother’s door had been like a revolving door since he was very young and she was still broke as hell. Ben pulled his knees up to his chest when he felt the hunger pains ripping through his belly again. That made him angry. His mother had all of these dudes in and out, but there was never anything to eat in the house. He turned over onto his stomach thinking that maybe laying on it would help the hunger pains subside. It didn’t help one bit. He put his pillow over his head to drown out more sounds of his mother getting her back blown out. “Fucking ho!” Ben cursed, jumping up out of the bed. He could see the sun rising out of his window. It was almost time for him to run his paper route and make some money. That was the only way he would eat. It was far from the first or the fifteenth of the month, which meant Celeste couldn’t afford any food.
Ben walked into the small kitchen in the project apartment he shared with his mother. He opened the refrigerator, there was nothing inside but an open can of Budweiser beer. It was the same story in the cabinets, minus the beer. When Ben opened the shabby cabinet doors, inside was bare except for the one or two hungry roaches that ran. He knew this beforehand but it was force of habit to open the refrigerator and cabinet doors with the hope food suddenly appeared.
“Shit, ya’ll niggas at the wrong house looking for crumbs,” Ben said to the roaches. He slammed the cabinets hoping the noise would disturb his mother’s groove. It didn’t work. She just kept right on doing her thing.
Ben went back in his room and slid on the one pair of sneakers he owned—a beat down pair of Nike Uptowns that used to be white but now looked more like dark brown. Celeste had finally broke down and bought Ben a pair of sneakers about eight months prior. The shits were run down in the back, dirty and starting to rip on top. Ben was embarrassed to wear them to school. At thirteen, while other kids were rocking fly gear, Ben had two pairs of jeans that he played switch-a-round with, two hoodies and a few dingy white t-shirts. That was all his wardrobe consisted of. He had stopped going to school because of the way the kids teased him about his clothes.
As soon as he had turned thirteen, fed up with being hungry, Ben had walked his Brownsville neighborhood trying to find a job. Then he happened upon a new store that had just opened up near Pitkin Avenue. The owner told Ben if he delivered fliers to houses and other stores he would get paid for each one that he got rid of. That worked for a while, but the owner caught on that Ben was just dumping the fliers and coming back to get paid. Finally, Ben graduated to a full-time paperboy route. He would ride his pieced together bike to the Daily News newspaper depot, pick up his papers for the day and make deliveries in nice neighborhoods. Ben was making $100 a week and he thought it was so much money. It was to him. At least he could buy some food. Celeste always had her hands out for a little bit of the money too.
Ben hurried up and got dressed. He was too damn hungry to play around. He needed to do his paper route, get his chips up and get something to eat quick fast. He walked to his mother’s bedroom door and kicked the bottom of it. “I’m goin’ to work!” Ben yelled to his mother. “Shouldn’t tell your ass shit,” he said softly to himself.
“A’ight, go make that paper, boy,” Celeste replied, giggling at the man she was locked up in the room with.
Ben shook his head in disgust and prepared to leave the house. He picked up his raggedy bike and wheeled it out of his small apartment. Outside, he climbed onto the bike and rode down his block. He passed the usual neighborhood corner boys with their flashy chains and fresh gear. They were out there playing cee-lo and talkin’ shit, their usual daily routine.
Ben knew they were doing their thing and making money. He slowed his pace when he noticed a candy apple red Cadillac Escalade pulling up to the group of boys. Ben’s heartbeat quickened. He felt a pang of excitement come over him. Everybody knew who drove that boss ass Escalade.
It was Deezo, a big time hustler whose reputation preceded him. Deezo was known to be notorious and he didn’t play with his workers or his paper. He was also like the hood’s Robin Hood. He would hand out turkeys at Thanksgiving and give kids sneakers and toys at Christmas. Ben had been the recipient of a few of Deezo’s generous gifts. Deezo was both feared and revered in Brooklyn. In Ben’s assessment, Deezo was the man.
Ben stopped for a minute when he noticed Deezo’s ride. He wanted to catch a glimpse of the man he admired so much. He had been looking up to Deezo since he was a little boy. In Ben’s eyes, Deezo was more than the man around his way. Deezo had everything, a bunch of fly ass cars, more than one diamond encrusted chain with chunky platinum pieces hanging from them, huge diamond earrings in each ear and every type of designer clothes you could think of. Ben had made a mental note to check out Deezo for a month. Every time he turned around, Deezo had on a different color pair of Prada sneakers to match all of his Yankee fitted caps. Ben used to daydream about being just like Deezo when he got older. The hood’s Robin Hood was Ben’s role model.
Deezo pulled the Escalade up to the corner and all of the boys stopped what they were doing. Dice stopped flying, the talking stopped and so did the drug sales. It was like the corner boys were in the army when Deezo came through. They all stood up straight and at attention, looking at the Escalade.
“Ayo’ Quan, wassup?” Deezo called out from the window of his ride.
Ben had also noted that Quan was the dude in charge of that corner. He was the one who collected on Deezo’s loot from the corner boys that Deezo allowed to slang there. Quan walked over to the Escalade and gave Deezo a pound. With the slap of the hands, Ben saw them pass the money.
Smart, Ben thought to himself. He was making notes. Ben wanted to be just like them. Getting mad paper and fly as hell.
“Yo, lil nigga, whatchu lookin’ at?” one of the corner boys said to Ben after noticing him watching Deezo so closely. Ben stretched his eyes and rode off to do his paper route. Ben turned back one more time before he left the block and he noticed Deezo looking at him. Ben almost crashed his bike when he saw Deezo’s eyes on him.
That evening after Ben had finished his paper route, he slung the empty cloth newspaper bag on his bike handlebars and headed home. He was tired and hungry but he was happy to have gotten paid, which meant he had money for food. Ben got to his block and as usual the same corner boys were still out there doing the same thing—slanging them thangs. He pulled his rickety bike up to the side of the store, leaned it against the wall and passed the boys to get into the store. Ben unfolded the five crumpled twenty-dollar bills he had just earned. He was proud of his payday. He went around the store picking up stuff he wanted to eat—a box of Apple Jacks, half a gallon of milk, a pack of Lorna Doone cookies and three bags of barbeque potato chips.
“She better not ask for none of my stuff either,” Ben mumbled about his mother. He went to the counter and put his stuff down. “Yo A-rab . . . lemme get a hero,” Ben called out to the man behind the counter. “I want ham and American cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, mayonnaise, mustard and oil and vinegar.” His mouth watered as the man set about making his hero, which would be his dinner. He was sure his mother probably hadn’t cooked shit.
As Ben waited for his sandwich to be ready, he glanced out of the store window at the corner boys. He daydreamed for a minute thinking about all the things he would buy if he were in their positions. The first thing Ben thought of was new clothes. Clothes were a big status statement in Brooklyn. Most people in his neighborhood judged you on what you wore and how often you changed to something new.
The storeowner startled Ben when he told him his stuff was ready. He pulled out his bills and paid for his meager groceries. Ben stepped out of the door of the store and just as he did he noticed all of the corner boys starting to scatter.
“Five-O niggas, five -o en route!” one of the boys called out with his hands cupped around his mouth.
Ben looked around in confusion. Then he noticed the cop cars speeding down the streets, flashing lights but without any sirens blaring. The cops were trying to sneak up on the boys, but all corner boys had look outs. The word had already gotten out and the scrambling had begun. Ben grabbed up his bike and threw his grocery bag into the newspaper delivery bag that hung from his handlebars.
“Yo Shorty, take this and put it in your bag,” Quan, the lead corner boy who Ben had seen talking to Deezo, shouted at Ben. Ben’s eyes widened as Quan stuffed something into Ben’s newspaper bag. “Get the fuck outta here now, Shorty! I’ll see you later on about that! I know where you live at!” Quan barked frantically.
Ben nodded at Quan and did as he was told. With his heart hammering wildly in his chest, Ben climbed onto his bike and rode off doing top speed. He turned to look back once and noticed that the jump out boys had all of the corner boys lined up against the wall near the store, including Quan. Ben inhaled deeply and peddled his bike even faster. When he got to his building, he snatched the cloth newspaper bag off his bike and raced into his apartment. He was so nervous his hands shook. He raced pass his mother, who was in the living room with a new boyfriend that Ben was seeing more often now.
“Damn, you don’t say wassup?” Celeste called after him.
Ben ignored her. He went into his room and closed the door. He set the newspaper bag down on the floor and flopped on his bed. He was scared to look inside the bag at first but curiosity was killing him. He took out his grocery bag first, and then slowly he peered down into the cloth bag. His eyes lit up and he swore he could feel his blood pressure rising. Ben swallowed hard as he stared at the content of the bag. In the bottom of the bag lay three bundles tightly wrapped in plastic. Ben slowly and reluctantly picked each of the bundles up. One bundle was a bunch of red capped containers with white rocks in them. The second bundle was a bunch of brown and green grass looking stuff in small baggies and the third bundle was a bunch of tiny baggies with white powder in them. Ben knew all three bundles were drugs—crack, weed and either powdered cocaine or heroin. Although he was thirteen, growing up in the hood afforded Ben a vast street knowledge about drugs.