The Candy Shop (24 page)

We walked into the room and it was filled up with a few more junkies trying to make a purchase, which meant that I had to wait in line. But, Walt walked ahead of me and whispered something in this fine, dark-skinned guy’s ear. And when the guy looked into my direction, he waved me to come on over to where he was, so I did just that.

“You trying to make a trade ?” he didn’t hesitate to ask me, revealing a whole mouthful of platinum and diamond teeth.

I nodded my head.

“Where your dough at?” he wanted to know.

So, I handed him a folded twenty dollar bill and in exchange, he handed me the two caps of the lethal dope everybody called Helter Skelter.

“You ready?” Walt asked me.

“Yeah,” I said and turned around to leave.

Back in the hallway, he asked me what I was about to do next. And that’s when I told him I was going to head back to the apartment Teresa had before she passed.

“Ahhh man,” he began to say, “please forgive my manners. How was her funeral?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know because her mother had her body flown back to her home state. But, she did arrange for her to have a memorial service at the funeral home on 35th Street in Park Place.”

“How did she look?”

“Oh my, God! Her mother had her looking good. And you couldn’t even tell she was pregnant.”

“That’s good,” he replied as we walked toward the front door. “So, who’s at the house waiting on you?”

“Nobody.”

“So, why you trying to go back there and be all by yourself?”

“I don’t mind being by myself,” I expressed to him.

“I don’t either, but won’t cha stay here for a while and take a load off?”

“Nah, I don’t know about that. These people you keep up in here scare me.”

“I ain’t gon’ have you ’round dem,” he assured me. “I’ma put cha in my room and ain’t nobody gon’ bother you, either.”

I was beginning to feel like he was backing me up in a corner with his offer, and so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to chill out there. And besides, if the dope was good like he said it was, then I wouldn’t have to get back in the car and drive all of this way to make another purchase; it was right there at my disposal. So, I followed him to his room and I had to admit that it didn’t look like the rest of the house. He actually had a bed, a nightstand with a lamp, and a dresser with a mirror on top. It wasn’t all that clean in there, but it beat hanging out in one of those other hollow rooms.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he insisted.

“All right.”

“Now, if you need anything, I’ll be out in front of the house, making sure shit stays in order.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Lock the door after I leave too,” he instructed me. “I would hate for somebody to come in here and disturb you.”

“Oh, I’m fine. But, let me ask you something.”

“What’s up?”

“Who was that guy—the dark-skinned guy with the platinum and diamond teeth in his mouth?”

“Everybody calls him Black, why?”

“Just curious.”

“Well, I guess you’re entitled. But remember, if you need anything, just holler for me.”

“I will,” I assured him, and then he left.

A whole lot of shit transpired since I stepped back into the Candy Shop. First off, Walt invited me to move in with him the very next morning after the Sheriff set all of me and Teresa’s things out on the street.

We didn’t make it out there in time to get my things packed before they were actually set outside, but Walt and I were able to gather up all the things I needed. Speaking of which, we were together now. Yeah, I know that sounds strange and all, but he treated me with so much respect, it was unbelievable. And not only that, when I needed somewhere to lay my head, he came to my rescue. He even showed me how to master the dope game.

People looked for advice from him all the time. And what I liked about him was that he kept it real. Now, he may have been a washed-up old man, but he was smart as shit and a lot of people trusted him. And that’s what I was most attracted to.

Okay, now when he looked at me, he was always saying that he couldn’t believe that he had a woman like me. He was always trying to make sure I was all right and when we were in bed, he was always trying to go that extra mile. Now, his dick wasn’t all that big, but his tongue compensated for it all. Especially when he made me ride his face. Boy, that forty-seven year old man let me grind on his face like there was no tomorrow. And what really fucked me up was when he turned me over on my stomach and ate my pussy from the back. I guess seeing all this ass flapping in his face sent him off the deep end. So, if he liked it, I loved it.

It’d been nine months that I’d been living there. And believe me when I tell you I’d seen everything from niggas getting their asses kicked behind dumb shit, to the police running up in there and making arrests, to the stick-up kids walking out with shit that didn’t belong to them. I even started shooting up dope, but the way that I spiked myself was safe. Walt schooled me on how to work the needle properly.

And I have to admit that the shit really worked. But what I failed to mention was that two months earlier I loaned out Teresa’s car to a young boy and the bastard wrecked the fucking car. So now, I was out of a vehicle and back to doing it the old-fashioned way. Other than that, everything was everything except for the fact that I knew Walt was working for the police. I overheard Walt making a deal with one of the narc officers in private about setting up other people, just to keep his place running. And when I heard it, I was shocked like a motherfucker. I mean, this was not the Walt I had grown to know. This guy I overheard was somebody else. But, who was I to judge? I mean, if that was the only way for him to keep his spot open, then I was gonna have to roll it with and keep my damn mouth shut. I figured he knew what he was doing, so I was gonna get out of the way and let him do it.

Walt got the young boys who peddled that Helter Skelter dope to leave him a few of their caps, just in case some people came through looking for it. Now, it wasn’t unlikely for these guys to do this, because they’d done it before. And since Walt always had their money straight when they returned the following day, they handed him ten caps, closed down shop, and left.

Once the coast was clear, he took his ass straight up to his room. Now, I knew immediately what that meant, so I followed right behind him. Shit, I wasn’t going to let him have all the fun by himself. I wanted to get high too. And that’s exactly what I did. But, before we were able to cook our shit up and suck it up into the syringe, he had to make sure he only beat small quantities from each head of the caps.

If he took too much dope from each pill, then the fiends would notice it and they wouldn’t cop it. And not only that, them niggas who gave him those caps to hold were going to notice it too. So, if you tried to hand them their dope back and it had been tampered with, they’d kill you for playing with their emotions. That’s a no-no in this game.

But, people like me and Walt will still tread that thin line. It was just in our nature. Now, I saw why Eugene and Teresa used to get their asses kicked all of the time. They were fighting that temptation demon. And that motherfucker was a hard one to battle.

“Hold up, Walt. You took too much off that one,” I told him.

“No, I didn’t,” he protested.

“Yes, you did. Now, look at it,” I insisted as I picked the cap up in my hand and held it out for him to take a look at it.

He took a closer look at it and said, “Yeah, you’re right. That mu’fucka looks skimpy as hell.”

“I told you,” I said and set the capsule back down on the table in front of us.

“Look, it’s a lot of dope in this one,” I said as I pointed out one of the caps placed directly to the right side of the table. “You can take some of the heroin out of this one and put it back into that one.”

“Well here, you do it,” he instructed me and handed me the capsule with the least amount of heroin in it.

Using my eyes, I took both of the caps and weighed them both equally. You couldn’t even tell that they had been tampered with. Walt assured me of that. So, once all the kinks were ironed out, we sat back and got high as a motherfucking kite. My man hooked our dope up to the point that I would’ve jumped out of the second floor window, if somebody told me I could fly. That’s just how good I was feeling. And there was no other way I could describe it.

The following morning, around five a.m., those young boys came by and decided to open up shop early, since the word was out that there was a heroin drought going on, which meant they wanted to get in on the action. So, I opened up the door and let them both in, since Walt was nowhere to be found.

“Where he at?” Black asked me.

“I don’t know. He left about two hours ago and said he’d be right back, but I haven’t seen him,” I told him.

“Did he leave you with the dough?” his questions continued.

“Nope. He took everything with him.”

“A’ight. Well, me and my homeboy is gonna go in the back room and set up, so when he comes back, tell ’im to come holler at us.”

“Okay,” I said and then they walked off.

I went back up to the bedroom and waited for Walt to come back to the house, but after waiting for another two hours, he still hadn’t shown up. And that wasn’t like him. So, I headed back downstairs and hung out by the front of the house, while the fiends ran in and out. I collected a few dollars while I was out there. Normally, he’d be out there doing it but hey, I didn’t mind.

Meanwhile, as the time continued to roll by, this broke down-ass fiend we called Bootsey came walking toward me with his back hunched over, looking like he was carrying a set of fucking boxing gloves for hands. I instantly got an attitude, ’cause I knew he was about to beg me for something or another, so I turned my back on him and started walking toward the front door.

“Ay yo, Faith,” he said between coughs, “I need to holler at you for a second.”

I turned back around and said, “What is it, Bootsey?”

He walked closer to me and said, “I just wanna let you know that the police picked Walt up about thirty minutes ago, down by the corner store on Church Street.”

Hearing what Bootsey had just said sent my heart flying out of my chest. And all I could think about was why in the world would he be hanging out down by the corner store?

So, I looked at Bootsey and said, “Was he dirty?”

“Yeah, he sho’ was. And I believe that junkie bitch Maxine was the one who called the police on him too, because when she ran up on him and asked him to let her get a cap for seven dollars, he told her nah, dat he needed straight money. So, she said a few words and tried to shine on him. But, he told her he wasn’t trying to hear it. So, he walked away from her and that’s when she told him that he’s gon’ wish he gave her what she asked for.”

“That stinking bitch said that?” I said, my voice screeching.

“Yeah, she said it,” Bootsey continued to say as he hurled out another cough.

“Do you know how much he had on him?”

“Nah, but it looked like he could’ve had about five of ’em on him.”

“Did the police take any money from him?”

“Yeah, I seen ’em take some from his pockets.”

“Could you see how much it was?”

“Nah, I was too far off.”

“Ahh man, what am I going to do?” I said aloud as I threw both of my hands into the air.

“I don’t know whatcha gon’ do. But, I do know that dem magistrates downtown Norfolk ain’t gon’ sho’ him no mercy when it comes to that dope. They liable to give dat man a $25,000 bail for that little bit of shit he had.”

“Are you serious?”

“Hell yeah, I’m serious. They’re just nasty like that.”

“Well, if they do that, then he ain’t gonna ever be able to get out,” I began to say. “And to be honest with you, it wouldn’t matter if they gave him a low bail, because I’m still not gonna able to come up with a dime. I’m broke as hell and he knows it.”

“Well, you better cut your losses now. And believe me, he’ll understand,” Bootsey expressed and then stepped off and walked back in the direction he came from.

I stood there, baffled, after receiving that awful news from Bootsey. I honestly did not know what I was going to do while Walt was in jail. I mean, how was I going to survive out there? Because as soon as people got the news that he was locked up they were gonna wanna act like assholes and try to run all over me. But, hopefully after I talked to the Helter Skelter Boys and explained to them about Walt’s situation, they’d want to step up and keep shit intact for me. I just hope they didn’t try to hold me responsible for the shit he got locked up with and count their losses. Because what happened to him was hardly my fault, and I trusted that they would see it that way too. Speaking of which, I needed to get high so I’d be able to handle this shit better. I was about to fall apart out there and I couldn’t let that happen. I took my ass back in the house where I belonged.

When I got back in the house, I ran everything down to Black and he didn’t have a problem whatsoever when I told him that I was going to need him to kind of run things around there while Walt was away. So, I was very pleased to know that I was going to be all right. But, little did I know what I was going to be up against.

The whole time I’ve been living there, Walt had the electricity hooked up to the building next door through a heavy-duty extension cord and the people never had a problem about until now. So, I let the Black handle it and he did. But, what I later found out from one of the tenants next door was that, Black promised to give her boyfriend two pills of dope every day for his lights, which was one pill more than he gave me for being selling his shit out of there. So, the guy was cool with that arrangement and the deal was made. Now, I never said anything to Black about what I had heard because I later found out that he wasn’t as friendly as he appeared to be when Walt first let him and his homeboys in the house to sell their shit. But, I guess time and the change of events would alter anybody’s tolerance level. It’d sure had an effect on mine.