The Candy Shop (13 page)

“Yeah, come on,” the other woman said.

Zena looked back at Teresa and I and said, “Hey look, I gotta make a quick run. But, I’ll be right back.”

Knowing good and well that this chick was lying out of both sides of her mouth, Teresa said okay anyway and watched her haul ass on across the street. It was evident that she was on a mission to get high and she wasn’t going to let no one stand in the way of that. So, there was no point in us trying to get any more information out of her.

Now, as the police detectives began to disperse from the scene, so did the residents, which was our cue to get out of there as well.

When we arrived back at Teresa’s apartment, I decided it to spend the night at her place, so she wouldn’t be alone. This was a trying time for her, so I wanted nothing else but to be there for her.

The next morning Teresa and I met with the homicide detectives down at the coroner’s office to identify Eugene’s body. The process didn’t take long at all. After she filled out and signed the appropriate paperwork, she talked briefly with the detectives about the conversation she’d had with Zena—who she didn’t mention by name—and the events that led up to her brother being killed. They took down her information and told her that they would follow up with that lead and get back with her if anything came of it. Teresa said, “Fine,” and we departed.

“How long do you think it’s going to take for them to find that Bing Bing character?” I asked the moment we got into my car.

Teresa began to gaze out at window at God knows what and said, “I don’t know. I just really hope that they can catch him.”

“Oh, don’t worry! They will.”

“I sure hope so,” she said with little enthusiasm.

I rubbed her across her shoulders in a circular motion and instead of dwelling on the what-ifs, I switched up the conversation and asked her how Eugene was looking to her on that table.

Before she answered, she looked into my eyes, as if she was searching for the right words to say. After a brief sense of hesitation on her part, she finally came out and said, “He looked like he was ’sleep to me.”

“I thought the same thing,” I told her. “But, you could tell that he had a hard life.”

“Hard ain’t the word. That man has been through some shit in his life since he started fucking around with that needle. I mean, it’s crazy because he used to have a damn good job at the Ford Plant before they did that big layoff. It seems like after that happened, everything started falling apart on him.”

“Oh yeah, I remember that because he lost his house and his car behind that.”

“Yep. And do you remember that bitch he was married to named Stephanie?”

“Oh yeah, I remember her.”

“Well, do you remember when she packed her shit up and took both of his kids from him because money was getting low and he couldn’t find another job?”

“Oh yeah, I remember all of that,” I replied as I visualized how that whole incident went down. “And you know what?” I continued. “He wasn’t right after she did that shit to him, too.”

“Hell nah, he wasn’t right. And I believe that’s what sent him to the streets, too.”

“Now that I think about it, you’re probably right. But, let me ask you this.”

“Go ’head,” she insisted.

“Have you called your mother and told her about Eugene getting shot?”

“Yeah, I called her right before you came by last night.”

“And what did she say?”

“She really didn’t have much to say.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, she’s sort of been expecting something like this to happen to him since he’s drifted off into that lifestyle. So, it didn’t come as no surprise to her when I told her. But, she did tell me that she’ll be in town by tomorrow morning to take care of his funeral arrangements.”

“What about your other relatives? Are they gonna fly here too?”

“Girl please, my other relatives could care less about my brother. They’re probably glad he finally put himself out of his own misery.”

“Damn, that’s sad!”

“It sure is. And that’s why I don’t deal with none of their asses right now to this day,.” She made a face like she had a bad taste in her mouth.

“Well, what about your father?”

“My mom will probably bring him. But, he’s so far gone now with his Alzheimer’s that it’s going to be impossible for him to even remember he had a damn son.”

“Wait, I thought he was going through that dementia stage?”

“He was. But just recently, my mother called me and told me it progressed.”

“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Don’t be sorry, ’cause when that motherfucker was in his right mind, he used to terrorize the hell out of me and my brother while we were growing up. And I couldn’t understand, for the life of me, why he treated us the way he did and never told us that he loved us.”

“He was probably was dealing with some issues of his own,” I said in effort to downplay her father’s behavior.

But, as our conversation progressed, her facial expressions began to turn more sour by the minute. So I took it upon myself to change the subject to something more pleasing to the ear, which worked, because Teresa calmed right on down.

So, far the police hadn’t been able to apprehend this Bing Bing guy for killing Eugene and it was tearing Teresa apart. But, she did manage to put those feelings on the back burner and solely deal with laying him to rest, which was a very sad occasion. I guess shit had gotten too overwhelming for her because in the middle of the service, she fell out cold. Me and a couple of her relatives had to get her some medical attention. She came back around not too long after the services had ended and cursed out a few of her family members, while the hurt she was suffering from was fresh on her mind.

Now, I tried to defuse a couple of her confrontations, but after a while shit started getting redundant, so I figured what’s the use and carried my ass home to my empty house. And yeah, that’s right! It’d been two weeks now and Eric was still camping it around his parents’ house.

I’d made a couple of stops by there while he was there, but he refused to talk to me. He was still holding that letter he read about my positive drug screen over my head. And until I came clean about my drug use and got some help for it, then there was nothing for us to talk about. So, I had to make it clear to him that he could stay around his parents’ house as long as he wanted to, but Kimora will be returning home very shortly, so he’d better make some rational decisions before shit gets really ugly.

All the response I got out of him was a door slammed in my face. But, it was cool though, because I didn’t expect anything else but that type of behavior coming from him. That’s just how he had been from day one. So, silly of me to think that he would ever change.

You would think that after all the shit Teresa went through with Eugene’s death and all the shit I went through with my husband, that we would want to straighten out our lives. But, unfortunately, that just wasn’t the case because we were acting reckless and getting high like crazy. And I also began to lose sight of everything I deemed important in my life.

My bank account and my credit cards were almost maxed out, and I even lent out my brand new Jaguar to a couple of dealers in exchange for huge amounts of heroin and coke. Every time it came time for those assholes to bring my car back, a problem would always come into play.

Like the incident when I let this young guy named Papoose pay me $150 worth of coke and heroin to use my car for the whole day. But, the motherfucker didn’t bring it back until almost forty-eight hours later, and when I chewed his ass out about it, this bastard got in my face and threatened to smack the shit out of me if I didn’t shut up. So, naturally I backed off and went on my merry way because this nigga seemed like he was crazy. I was truly not in the mood to be getting my ass kicked behind disrespecting some ole young-ass punk. Besides, how in the hell was I going to explain to my husband how I got a black eye? Either way it came out, he wouldn’t understand. So, I did a good thing by walking away.

Speaking of which, Eric moved back into the house, but he made it his mission to make my stay there very uncomfortable, and I found myself hanging out at Teresa’s apartment more often than usual. I even spent the night over there a few times to avoid going home all fucked up. Today was no different. So, immediately after I took a couple of sniffs of the little bit of shit I had left, I looked over at Teresa, who was sitting in the love seat on the opposite side of the living room with the tip of the needle still injected into her arm and said, “Are you all right over there?”

“Oh, I’m straight,” she said, her words slurring. “I’m just enjoying this feeling I’m getting from this shit and trying to figure out how I’m gon’ get me some more of it.”

“Is that why you haven’t taken that needle out of your arm yet?”

“Boy, you learn fast,” she commented, scratching the left side of her face like the dope she had just shot into her veins was really taking effect.

So, instead of responding to her comment, I elected to lay my head back and close my eyelids because I had nothing else to say. But she did.

“I know one thing,” she began to say, her words still slurring, “I sho’ gotta get me a couple more pills of that penny candy, ’cause them young boys put their thing down with this shit today.”

“But, I thought you were on that Predator kick?”

“I was, until I got a taste of this shit here.”

“It is better, huh?”

“You motherfucking right! So, we gon’ have to make another trip down to Grandy Park before that shit runs out.”

“Now, how are we going to do that, when we don’t have a fucking penny to our name?”

“Don’t worry,” she told me. “I’ve got just the right thing for that,” she continued as she pulled the needle from her arm. She got up from the chair and headed down the hallway toward her bedroom. Two minutes later, she returned to the living room with a fairly new black woman’s leather jacket in her hands. “How much you think we can get for this?” she asked me.

“I’m not sure,” I replied with uncertainty.

“Well, let’s go find out,” she insisted.

Before I got up, I hesitated a bit and began to weigh the pros and the cons about what I was getting ready to get into. Now, I was high already from the shit I had just snorted. So, if I decided to run downtown with Teresa to cop some more of that penny candy she was talking about, then I was not going to be in any shape to go home. But, if I decided not to ride out with her, then I was gonna miss out on some good shit. And I wasn’t trying to do that, so what was a girl to do?

“What you stalling for?” she asked me.

“I’m not stalling,” I assured her.

“Well, let’s go then,” she continued.

Feeling the pressures of trying to stick by her side, I stood up from the sofa and followed her out the front door. And once we were outside, I elected to drive us to our destination because she was truly not in her right state of mind to drive us herself.

As expected, the main strip in Grandy Park was packed from corner to corner with junkies, dope fiends, the dealers, and a few hoes lurking on the sidelines, trying to put their bid in for a nightcap in exchange for some cash or a couple pills of dope. There was nothing unusual about this scene.

Once I got a parking spot, Teresa hopped out of the car with her leather jacket in hand and headed over toward this cute, young, fat guy who everybody called the Ice Cream Man. And from the looks of this cat, I guessed they called him the Ice Cream Man for either his weight problem or all the jewelry he wore which, in my opinion, made him look like he was trying to be superior to all of the low-income housing residents out there. Or, for a better phrase, made him look like he was The Man around there.

When Teresa walked up to him, she gave him a little bit of lip service and then she held up the jacket in front of him. But, for some reason, homeboy wasn’t interested at all, so she folded the jacket up, tucked it under her arm, and walked away. As she attempted to cross the street, I heard him say, ”Ay yo, Shorty, come back over here so I can holler at you for a minute.”

Like a dog adhering to her master’s command, Teresa turned back around and marched her ass right back over to where he was standing. Now, I couldn’t make out what either of them were saying this time around, but whatever it was drew their attention in my direction. So, I sat in my car with a bewildered expression and wondered to myself what the hell they could be talking about. And then, out of the blue, Teresa came running over toward me.

“You are not going to believe what that nigga just asked me to do,” she said the moment she approached me, sounding out of breath.

“You’re probably right. But, what did he say?”

“He wants me to ask you if you would trick with him.”

“Are you fucking crazy? I’m not a ho!” I said with utter disgust. “I mean, how could you even fix your mouth to ask me some shit like that?”

“Look, I already told him you wouldn’t go for no shit like that. But, he was like if I didn’t make it happen, then he wasn’t trying to make a trade.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. Because I am not selling my pussy for a couple pills of his so-called penny candy!” I expressed with discontent.

“Oh, he was gon’ give you more than a couple pills,” she said with confidence. “As a matter of fact, he told me he’ll give you $200 worth of dope if you’ll be with him for one hour.”

“Well, it ain’t gon’ happen, so let’s go.”

“Come on now, Faith,” she began to beg me. “This is the only way we’re going to be able to get a hold to some of his shit.”

“Well, you fuck him, then.”

“But, he doesn’t want me.”

“Well, I’m sorry ’cause I’m not about to do it. Now, if you can’t get him to buy that jacket right there, get your silly ass in this car right now, ’cause I am going to leave you.”

Desperate to make the trade through any means necessary, Teresa said, “Hold up, wait a minute,” and then she dashed back off in the direction of the Ice Cream Man.

I couldn’t tell you what she had up her sleeve, but whatever it was, I knew I wasn’t going to allow myself to take no part in it. I didn’t give a damn if I used drugs or not; I refused to let a young-ass drug dealer treat me like I was some gutter trash prostitute for some fucking dope. I’d leave that department up to Teresa, since she seemed to enjoy it.