A Child of a CRACKHEAD II (11 page)

“Okay?” Michael replied as he kissed her goodbye. He didn’t want her to go, but knew she had to have a life outside of his too.

Envy walked down the hall and she went in Mike’s room to check on him. He was fully dressed with the South Pole green shirt and jeans with the sneakers to match that she had got for him. Mike looked up at her as if he wanted to cry. “Are you mad at me, Envy?”

She looked down at him into his eyes that looked so innocent on his handsome face. How could someone look like that and have so much evil in them she thought to herself. “No baby, I’m not mad at you. I was never mad at you just that I’m shocked at all that happened today.”

He smiled knowing now that she was not mad at him and the fact that she still loved him. He didn’t want to lose her love that made him feel good all over.

“I’m going away for a day or two then I’ll be back okay Mike?” Envy told him.

His facial expression changed as soon as the words were spoken. “I thought you said you wasn’t mad or upset with me, Ms. Envy? Please, don’t go, I need you. You’re so nice to me and no one has ever been so nice to me. But you and Michael dress me nice and feed me. You gave me my own room and a bed to sleep in.” Mike began to cry. “Please, don’t leave! I’ll be good. I couldn’t help it.”

Envy hugged him and kissed his forehead.

“No baby, I’m not leaving. I’m just going to see my sister for a day and go shopping. You know how I love to shop. It helps me smile. I’ll never leave you. We are family now.” Envy stated rocking him and began to cry herself seeing Mike so upset and crying and the pain he was carrying.

He was so young, but seemed so old for his age.

Both Mike and Envy held each other until they stopped crying. “Okay, let’s stop all this crying.”

She wiped his face and wiped the tears away from her face with her hands. “I’ll come back.”

“Okay Ms. Envy,” Mike said and smiled she kissed his forehead.

“Later Mike, goodbye,” she turned around and said to him.

“Never say goodbye. Goodbye is forever.

Say see you later.” They both smiled and she walked down the hall.

She unlocked the door and headed out. She wondered how the gunmen got into the house as she got in her white BMW. She started the car and sat there lost in her mind thinking as the car was warming up. They both are so worried about me, but the fact is, that there’s two dead men upstairs in the bathroom. Killing and death is so naturally for them. It’s like it’s almost normal as if it’s second nature she said out loud as she headed towards her sister’s house.

Mike knocked on Michael’s door. He opened it with a black bag in his hand. “Hey, you alright?” Michael asked.

“Yes, I’m okay,” Mike replied.

“Good because I’m ready to bounce. You ready? Let’s go.” Michael said and took the bags and took one last look at the place with the two dead men on the bathroom floor then headed out the door.

He jumped in his Lexus and took off.

Michael pulled up in front of his community center in Brownsville. Mike smiled as he looked at the building. He missed playing with the other kids so much. The place felt like home. Mike jumped out of the car and ran to the front door followed by Michael. He grabbed Mike’s hand. Remember don’t tell anyone what happened this morning.”

Mike shook his head yes up and down and ran in the building. Michael did his rounds to see how many women and children were staying there.

He was also checking on his staff. He went back downstairs and saw Mike playing football in the gym. “He’ll be ok. I got to get this done.” Michael said and quickly left the center and began driving back to his house.

Once in the house, he began wrapping up the bodies. He carried the bodies to his car one by one after making sure no one was around or looking out their windows. He began bleaching down everything in the house the bathroom more than anything. He was scrubbing the wall and the floors.

He put everything bloody in a bag with Mike’s clothes in it. He locked the house door and jumped into his car and took off. He drove straight to the house in Flatbush, parked in the garage, and then pulled the bags with the bodies in them in the house. He dragged them into the basement where he opened a suitcase that had knives and machetes of all different sizes. He picked up the longest one and unwrapped the bodies making sure that the plate covered the floor. He began to chop them up, piece by piece, from their head to their legs and arms. He then carried the body parts upstairs to the second floor to a room far in the back. He never really entered this room something about it he just didn’t like. As he unlocked the door, the cold air hit his face. This was different from the rest of the other rooms. This room was turned into a freezer.

The other rooms all had the body parts in jars, big and small, but not here. The body parts were hung from hooks from heads to arms and even half of a man’s body. Michael knew this room was where Black Ice had put the people he hated the most.

Michael hung up the body parts on the hooks and quickly left the room. Then he changed his clothes making sure to wash all of the blood off of himself.

He left the house and headed back to the community center.

Mike sat in the cafeteria at a table eating pizza and drinking juice. He was tired of playing with the other kids so he sat alone. The cafeteria was packed with children from all ages and gender.

A little girl, that was ten years old, seen Mike by himself and walked over to him with her tray of food in her hand. “May I sit with you?” she asked.

Mike looked up from his tray and when he saw the girl he couldn’t help, but to smile. She was dark skinned with her hair all braided up with beads. Her eyes were almond shaped and her smile was as bright as the sun. She had a sweater that looked too big for her and some dirty jeans with some beat up looking sneakers on. “Sure you can sit,” Mike replied.

“Okay thanks. My name is Crystal and you are?”

“My name is Mike.”

“Oh okay. Hi Mike, it’s nice to finally talk to you,” Crystal replied.

“What you mean by that?” Mike asked.

“Well I always see you around here, but you never say anything to me. You play with some of the other kids then always sit alone somewhere and watch what everybody else is doing.”

Mike smiled. “So, you’re watching me, but yeah I just like to be alone sometimes,” he replied while taking another bite of his pizza.

“Me too, Mike. So, maybe we can be alone together as friends.” Crystal said with a cheesy smile on her face hoping she made a new friend.

“Okay that sounds good to me. So how old are you, Crystal?”

“I’m ten years old about to be eleven in November.”

“Oh okay I’m ten. My birthday is in May.

So, who are you here with?” Mike asked.

Crystal stopped eating her pizza and her facial expression changed. She got so sad. “Umm, my mommy. She just came back. Now, she’s smoking that funny smelling stuff and is too pretty for that. She used to smoke her cigarettes that didn’t smell so bad and when she was done she cooked and we ate a lot.” Crystal face lit up when she thought about it then got sad again. “Then she went missing one day so I came here because no one else wanted me, not my aunties or grandmother.

I stayed here for three months without telling anyone she was gone because I knew they would take me away like they do to the other kids who don’t know where their mommy or daddy is at.”

“So, what happened?” Michael asked knowing now how much he could relate to her life.

“Well, one night she just came back and didn’t look or smell the same, but I knew it was her.

She found me here and came to visit and check up on me, but kept leaving to go back to find more of that funny smelling stuff to smoke out of a glass pipe. I cried and cried and asked her to stop and she said she would try. She said we had no place to live in the projects. We lost everything, but everyone knew the center would help. They feed you, wash your clothes, and give you a place to sleep upstairs.

So, mommy said to stay here and ever since she left and came back she hasn’t been acting like she used to. She talks in her sleep, screams, and cries. Every time I talk to a boy she yells and says they will rape me. All boys and men will rape me like they did her.”

Mike had a confused look on his face. He understood everything she was talking about until she said rape. “Crystal, don’t laugh at me, but what is rape?”

“Well, my mommy said that’s when a boy or a man touches your body or your private parts and you yell stop, but they keep doing it. That’s rape. When my mommy sleeps, she fights like a lot of men are touching her where they shouldn’t in her dreams. Mommy said all boys and men are bad, but I don’t believe that. Mr. Michael, who owns this place, isn’t bad and he’s helping mommy get a place of her own to live. Mike, you’re not bad.

You wouldn’t hurt me right?” Crystal asked looking him in the eyes.

“No, I wouldn’t. Michael taught me over and over to never hurt girls. It’s wrong for a man or a boy to do so.”

“Okay so that’s great. I’m done eating.

Let’s go play.” Crystal said as she got up and looked back to see if Mike was going to come.

Mike and Crystal played for the rest of the day.

They played cards and tag and video games in the game room. The center staff had them watch a Disney movie with the rest of the kids in the movie room.

Michael was back at the center and loved how it was running. So far they cleaned up ten women for good off crack and helped to get section eight apartments this month alone. The state was helping fund his center through grants, but in the back of his head he knew that he’d never been able to get this started without the money he found so many years ago in the houses that his father left him. “It’s funny Black Ice sells crack to women and I clean them up,” he said out loud as he looked at the intake paper work in his office. He noticed that there seemed to be more young women coming in pregnant and addicted to crack. It didn’t make sense. Most young people don’t smoke crack.

They mostly get abused women. “Something is going on,” Michael thought out loud. Michael put the paper work away and left his office. He made his last run checking on security guards and counselors that would be working the night shift. It was 8pm and time for the cafeteria to serve dinner then a snack, but some of the children were still in the movie room watching another Disney movie.

Michael knew that’s where he would find Mike.

Some of the counselors were at the movie room door and telling the children to go eat. Outside the room Mike and Crystal were talking about the movie. Michael smiled at seeing this. Out of nowhere a woman came and grabbed Crystal by the arm and turned her around to face her. “Didn’t I tell you not to talk to boys or men? They’re evil and will hurt you,” the woman screamed and squeezed tighter on Crystal’s arm.

“Mommy, you’re hurting me and Mike is my friend. He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Crystal don’t you fucking talk back to me.

Don’t speak to no boys.”

Michael had seen enough. He knew Candice well. She was Crystal’s mother. He also knew that she was a good person, but she hasn’t been the same once she went missing. Every time a man tries to touch her, she would jump out of fear.

Michael had sat down and talked to her over and over trying to help her and find out what had happened to her during those few months, but she refused

to talk.

“That’s

enough

you’re

overreacting. Crystal didn’t do anything wrong.”

Candice was about to yell ‘mind your fucking business this is my child’ until she looked up and seen it was Michael standing next to her.

“You’re right Michael, but I’m scared and think they’re all bad and going to hurt my baby like they hurt me.”

“You can’t think like that Candice. I’m a good guy. Haven’t I been there for you?”

“Yes Michael, you have, but you’re the only good guy left.”

“Well okay, but you see this little boy. His name is Mike. I’m his legal guardian that means I’m raising him. He’s a good boy and going to grow up to be a good man. So, he’ll never hurt Crystal.”

Candice took a minute to let his words run through her mind. She was twenty six years old; dark skinned, and had a body most women killed for until she got hooked on crack. Her look was starting to come back from not smoking. She found Michael to be a very attractive man even though she was older by a few years. She knew he had wisdom far from his age. ‘Damn, if I fix myself up, maybe he’ll find me beautiful. He’s the only man I trust in this world right now,’ Candice thought to herself.

“Okay Michael, if you say he’s good like you, I’ll take your word. It’s just hard for me to trust any man after what I’ve been through and seen.”

“Yeah Candice, you really need to tell me all about it one day.”

Candice just shook her head from side to side, “I can’t.”

“Okay, we’ll finish this conversation another day. It’s time for me and Mike to go. “Mike say bye to your friend.”

Mike hugged Crystal. “Bye, see you tomorrow.”

“Bye Mike,” Crystal replied. She wanted to hug him back, but feared what her mother would do or say.

“Bye Candice,” Michael said as he walked out of the building with Mike at his side.

Crystal and Candice watched Mike and Michael leave. “Come on baby, let’s go eat.”

Candice said as she touched her daughter by the hand and headed up the stairs. ‘I can never tell what happened to me to Michael or he’d kill me.’

Candice thought to herself as she remembered all the things Black Ice and his men did to her. The main thing he said to her and the other few women he let free a month ago. ‘If you ever talk or tell anyone about what happened to you, I’ll find you and you will suffer and undergo pain for as long as I want to keep you,’ then he laughed. His laughter echoed through her head as she entered the cafeteria. She looked at some of the women eating.

They all made eye contact for a while and remembered the dark secret. They would never tell Michael.

“This isn’t’ the way home.” Mike stated as he noticed they were taking a different route.

“I know Mike, but we’re going to our new home.”