A Sticky Situation (7 page)

Dales Homes was one of the oldest projects in the city of Portsmouth, and it was known for its heavy drug traffic. I used to visit this place often when I had a parolee who resided out there with his mother. I warned him all the time that it wasn’t a good place for him to be if he really wanted to keep his nose clean and stay off the street. Sorry to say, he didn’t listen to me. After about a year, I got a call from a Portsmouth Narcotics detective, advising that he had just busted my client and a few other guys for selling crack cocaine to an undercover police officer. Needless to say, things didn’t work out for him, because after the state judge handed him a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence, I violated him and gave him the other four years he had over his head. He had been gone now for almost two years, so I hoped he learned his lesson this time. If he hadn’t, he was going to spend a lot more time behind bars than he would on the streets. The only thing I could do for people like him was wish them well, because my main focus right now was Seth. He was a major priority for me. Finding out exactly where he was going and who he was affiliating himself with would take precedence over everything I had to do today. How I would go about doing it was another issue, but I knew I couldn’t be too eager.

The apartment buildings were built side by side in the form of a horseshoe. There was one street that traveled in a semicircle, called Dale Drive. As you drove around it you couldn’t see what was ahead until you actually drove up on it, because you were constantly turning your steering wheel to the left. I figured if I wanted to avoid running into Seth, I needed to park my car and walk the rest of the way. Something told me not to walk down the block with my Dooney and Burke bag, so I tucked it underneath the driver’s seat of my car. After I got out, I activated the alarm so I wouldn’t have any problems. As I strolled down Dale Drive, I had to pass an array of people standing on the corner. I walked by a young woman who looked like she wasn’t more than twenty-one years old, sporting a blonde and blue, hard-wrapped wig. She was cursing out her two sons because they kept running in and out of the house. I also walked by this guy beating the hell out of his girlfriend. What was so crazy was that the block was filled with people, and no one broke it up. From the sound of things, he was whipping her ass because he caught some guy in her house. All I could do was shake my head and keep it moving.

There were a lot more people I came in contact with who were in really bad shape. One person who really stood out among them all was this light-skinned woman, who looked like she used to be attractive at one point in her life. She looked like she had one foot in the grave, and it wasn’t going to be very long before the other one joined it. As I walked in her direction, I put my head down to avoid eye contact with her. I felt like if I looked at her, it would appear that I was staring at the condition of her body, and I didn’t want to do that. You could never tell how these people would react if you looked at them funny, so, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I found out that she wasn’t going to let me by without stepping to me first.

“Excuse me ma’am,” she said between coughs as she stood up from a green metal utility box. “Do you think you can spare some change?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have any,” I told her and began to pick up my pace.

That didn’t matter to her, because she wanted to get my full attention. She got it when she reached out and grabbed my arm. The shit startled the hell out of me, and I honestly wanted to jump out of my fucking skin. I mean, to have this lady get up enough balls to grab me with her abscess-infected hands made me damn near pass out. Without even thinking twice, I stopped in my tracks and snatched my arm away from her.

“Please don’t do that,” I warned her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, releasing my arm. “But all I want to do is tell you not to do it.”

“Do what?” I asked, wondering what the hell she could be talking about.

The lady got closer and said, “I used to walk around here looking just like you, wearing nice clothes, thinking I was high and mighty because I was beautiful and had a long, healthy head of hair. I had a nice body and all the men wanted to be with me. But at the blink of an eye, my world got turned upside down when I started hanging out in places like this.”

“But I don’t get high,” I interjected.

“Yeah, that’s what we’ve all said. Now look at us.” She pointed at different drug addicts in our immediate vicinity. “We all got a story to tell. But mine is by far the worst, if you ask me, because I was an assistant principal at a performing arts school, making good damn money. But because of my heroin addiction and hanging in that motherfucking candy shop over there in Norfolk, I lost my husband, my daughter, and my home in Virginia Beach. The repo man took my 2007 Jaguar after I let the dope boys tear it up. I used to rent it out to them for days at a time, for a couple measly pills of dope,” she continued as water began to build up in her eyes.

“I’m sorry to hear about your loss, ma’am, and I would love to stand here and listen to you, but I’m sort of in a rush.”

“Don’t call me ‘ma’am’. My name is Faith.”

“I’m sorry, Faith, but I’ve got to go,” I told her and abruptly walked off.

“I hope you take heed to what I said,” she yelled.

“Oh, shut the hell up, Faith! That lady ain’t thinking about your dopefiend ass!” I heard a male voice shout.

I refused to turn around to see who made the comment. I figured he wasn’t talking to me anyway, so why bother? As I walked farther down Dale Drive, I finally saw Seth’s car. It was parked right in front of a tree, but again, he was nowhere in sight. There were at least three-dozen apartments that he could have gone into. To stand there and wait for him to come out would be insane. I turned around and headed back to my car. Immediately after I got in it, I drove right back out the way I came and circled around to the other side of the horseshoe. All I wanted to see was which apartment he was in, and then I’d leave. As soon as I found a parking space with the perfect view, I parked. Then I had to sit and wait. I sat back and listened to every CD in my six-disc changer, which ran for about three hours, and still Seth remained in hiding. I called him a couple of times, hoping he would come outside to take his call, but he refused to answer, so I chalked it up as a loss.

As I was about to give up and call it a day, the guy from the white house pulled up in his Hummer and parked it right beside Seth’s car. My heart jumped for joy. Hopefully, it would only be a matter of seconds before I found out where that motherfucker was. Before I could count to ten, that guy walked right up to an apartment on the far left side of the building, carrying a brown paper bag in his right hand. Before he could reach out, someone from the inside opened the door for him. I couldn’t see if it was Seth or not because of the dark screen on the door. At that point, though, it didn’t matter because my mission was accomplished, and now I could carry my ass home.

SETH

I Get Money

Ay yo, Melody, I know you fucked that coffee grinder up on purpose,” Mike said the moment he stepped foot into the spot. “Nah, Mike, it wasn’t her fault,” I said as I approached him. “Where’s it at? Let me see it,” Mike insisted.

Melody and I both led him into the kitchen.

“See? It wasn’t my fault,” she pointed out. “The blade is dull now, so it isn’t grinding anything anymore.”

“How much shit did you lose?”

“Not much,” Melody said.

“How much is not much?”

“Probably about ten pills, if that much.”

“You sure you didn’t stick that shit in your pocket?” Mike questioned her, giving her one serious look.

“Come on now. You know I wouldn’t play with your dope like that,” Melody tried to assure him.

“You better not, because if I ever find out you stealing from me, I’ma kill you, bitch!”

“Nah, dawg, I was standing around her the whole time. She didn’t try to throw salt in the game,” I told him.

“She better not!” Mike handed her the brown paper bag.

“Is this a new coffee grinder?”

“Yeah. So go ahead and handle your business, so I can get me some motherfucking money rolling through here. You know I hate having good dope and ain’t nobody coming through to cop it.”

“Oh, believe me, plenty of fiends been coming through, but we had to turn ’em away because we couldn’t get the coffee grinder to mix the dope up properly,” I said.

“Well, we ain’t gon’ worry about that anymore. That problem is solved. What I want to know is, where is everybody at?” Mike looked out the kitchen window. “I didn’t see any of our runners standing at their posts when I pulled up. The only nigga standing out there is Omar, and that ain’t a good look.”

Wearing the surgical mask, Melody turned around and said, “I sent Ian to the store to get me some milk and a box of sandwich bags. I’m not sure where Ran is.”

“Did you ask Ian or Omar?”

“Yeah, and they said they hadn’t seen him since he left from around here last night,” she replied.

“Well, we gon’ have to recruit a couple more niggas, because I can’t have y’all in the spot with all this shit and not enough niggas on the outside watching y’all back.”

“Shit, all I need is a burner and I’ll be able to hold the spot down by myself,” I interjected.

Mike laughed. “Yeah, that burner will slow down a couple of cats from trying to run up in here to rob you, but it ain’t gon’ do shit if Narcs bust up in here.”

I became defensive. “Oh so, you don’t think I’d bust my gun at them crackers?”

“Come on, Seth. I was locked up with you and I know how hard you can go. But we still need more niggas outside. I can’t afford to have police run up in here. I got too much shit to lose.”

“You sure do,” Melody spoke up.

Mike smiled at her and said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” He looked at me and said, “Let me holler at you for a minute.”

Curious about why he wanted to speak to me in private all of a sudden, I got up from the table and followed him into Melody’s bedroom. I thought he would shut the door behind us after we entered into the room, but he didn’t. “What’s up?”

Mike said, “You know I ain’t a petty-ass nigga. I am loyal to any cat that’s loyal to me, and I love to see everybody eat, if they’re hungry enough to go after it. I just got hit off with a huge load of raw heroin about an hour ago, and it’s enough where we could build an empire with it. Niggas could get rich off this shit in a matter of months. You could walk away with a half million in profit, easy. All we got to do is get a street team of niggas who ain’t scared to lock this place down, and we could be on our way.”

“What about Jay?”

“I got him over Norfolk right now, trying to recruit some go-hard niggas, so we can lock the whole Tidewater Park down.”

“So, y’all are serious about this, huh?”

“Hell, yeah! This shit ain’t a game! I’m trying to get rich!”

“Shit! Me too!” I said, without hesitation. The thought of making a half a million dollars in less than a month sounded real good to me. I could do a lot of shit with that dough. If I invested it right, I wouldn’t have to work or hustle again.

“You sure? Because I’m gon’ tell you right now, if you really want to get that type of paper in a month’s time, you gon’ have to work around the clock.”

“What’s around the clock?”

“I’m talking about you gon’ have to be out this joint from sunup to sundown,” he explained. “You know fiends be up searching for pills of dope early in the morning, so you gon’ have to be out here at least by five
AM
. But as far as the time you close down, that ain’t gon’ change. You can still shut shop down at nine o’clock.”

“Ahh man, my girl is going to kill me.” I sighed, thinking about all the shade Maxine was going to throw at me.

“Just tell her how much dough you gon’ make in that thirty-day period and see how she acts. I guarantee, she gon’ sing another song then.” Mike laughed. “Shit, bitches love money!”

“Not my girl! She’d rather have me working a nine-to-five, busting my ass for pennies, than to see me out here stacking up retirement money.”

“Oh, you got one of them goody two-shoes chicks, huh?”

“Shit, I don’t know what to call her. But I do know that she’s starting to get on my motherfucking nerves!”

“Come on, dawg; don’t ever let a chick stress you out.”

“Shit, it’s too late for that.”

“Well, whatchu gon’ do when Samantha gets out?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that shit out for the last few months.”

“When she getting out, anyway?”

“She called me this morning at my mom’s crib and told me she got twenty-nine days and a wake up.”

“Oh shit, for real?”

“Yep.”

“So, is she gon’ have to go to the halfway house?”

“Yeah, but it’s only going to be for a four-month stretch.”

“Well, this dough you about to get is going to come in handy because by the time she gets out of the halfway house, you can set her up in a nice spot.”

“Yeah, I know. She gon’ be happy as hell, too. All she keeps talking about is how she can’t wait until we can be together again. But it’s gon’ be really hard, ’cause the chick I’m fucking with now is the type that would do some underhanded shit if she found out Samantha was home and that we was back together.”

“Look, dawg: don’t ever let a bitch get the upper hand on you! It’s too many hoes out here to be putting up with dumb shit! Look at me; I got my wife, Lacy, and two side chicks. So, if one starts giving me a motherfucking headache, I’ll dip on her ass in a minute and go be with the other one. It’s that simple! And I ain’t gon’ have it no other way,” Mike said. “You see how I be handling Melody in there? I don’t let her get away with shit. I come here and make my money, get some pussy, and before I go, I’ll hit her off with some dough. That’s the extent of it. See, she knows about Lacy and my other chick Trina, but she also knows that she can’t question me about them, either. And if anyone of them ever stopped by here to see me, she knows she better not open up her motherfucking mouth about shit that goes on in this house. If she ever tried that, she knows I would shut her down.”