Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction (13 page)

“Why is it,” I said, “when I’m with you I feel like that kid Malvo? Muhammad’s plan, Muhammad’s gun, but the kid did most of the shooting. You mean to tell me these crumbs worth two hundred dollars?”

Fifty thought this was funny. “Life’s a bitch, man.”

* * * * *

The next day I woke up at noon, having stayed up half the night looking at my left leg and trying to convince myself it hadn’t swollen up. Damn, it sure looked like it had.

I’d almost went next door to get a second opinion.
Hey, I’m sorry to disturb you this time of morning, but would you look at my leg…Don’t the left look larger than the right?

Nothing in the fridge but a carton of eggs, only one of three not cracked. No bread. Plenty of spices, though. The apartment seemed empty. A funk was emanating from somewhere, following me room to room as I looked for the source. Couldn’t find it.

Two checks were in the mailbox below the stairs, one for Doreen, her bi-monthly paycheck, a few dollars shy of nine hundred dollars, the other my last check from Goldenwood, a measly two hundred dollars.

Going out the door my plan was to cash my check, buy a few groceries, and then use Doreen’s check as an excuse to talk to her. Baby, here’s your check. See, I didn’t cash it. Let’s talk, I wanna apologize.

A good plan. But all went to shit between the bank and the grocery store. I drove to the same spot on Oak Street where I’d been tricked a Franklin. This time I told the guy coming to the car, “A twenty, I’m not making no block, and I swear to God if you fuck me you’ll regret it!”

The guy said, “Hold on, dawg, I gotcha right here,” and pulled three rocks from inside the front of white denim jeans. “Look, pick the one you want.”

The one I picked didn’t make it back to the apartment. Went back and got another one for a hundred dollars. Then things got fuzzy. I couldn’t figure how I had one hundred and fifty dollars after spending one hundred and twenty from a two hundred dollar check.

Fuck it!

By four o’clock I didn’t have a dime, and my left leg started acting up again. The strange thing was when I looked at it the swelling stopped, but the moment I looked away, bam, it started swelling again.

A few minutes before four-thirty I was standing in line at the bank with Doreen’s check in hand, both our signatures on it. Hey, despite all that had happened, Doreen wouldn’t want me sitting alone in an empty apartment with my leg swelling up each time I looked away from it.

Still I was nervous, even more so when the teller took the check into a side room and stayed there for what seemed to me hours.

She finally came back and said, “Mr. Dough, I’m supposed to get approval from the person the check is written to, but I couldn’t contact your wife. I’m going to cash it this time, okay, but next time have your wife come in.” She winked at me.

I didn’t wink back, worried I’d get an eyeful of the sweat rolling down my forehead.

Later that night, around midnight, my new friend told me he wasn’t going to stand out on the corner all night, suggested I buy all I needed till tomorrow. That made sense to me. I bought five hundred dollars worth, and stayed up all night smoking and looking at my leg.

A red sun peeking over the horizon through the window, I got to thinking about Doreen, got to thinking how she may have been playing me, how she’d set me up so she’d have a reason to leave, get with her boyfriend. That got me off worrying about my leg swelling up and exploding in a million pieces.

All the while I was sitting there thinking I was the one who’d messed it all up, Doreen was the one who left to be with her boyfriend. Now, at this very moment, Doreen and her boyfriend were doing it; I was sure of that.

Driving to Doreen’s mother’s house at six in the morning it never occurred to me that Doreen probably wasn’t doing it there. It would later, though. Doreen’s Camry was parked behind her mother’s late-model Lincoln Continental.

In my mind I could hear Doreen screaming in pleasure, her boyfriend saying, “Push it, baby, push it!” the bedsprings squeaking, the mattress banging against the headboard, the music up loud, R. Kelley singing
Keep It On The Down Low
.

There was a slight chill in the air and the second I knocked on the door a dog started barking close by and it echoed back from the Human Services building two blocks away.

Gloria answered the door and asked me what I wanted this time of morning.

“I need to talk to Doreen.”

Her face tightened up. “John, I understand you and Doreen are married, but I don’t want any trouble here at my house. Okay? I’ll call the police, I promise you that.”

I told her I wasn’t going to start any trouble, only wanted to talk to my wife.

Doreen came to the door wearing a blue pinstripe jacket and pants, her hair braided, longer than before, almost touching her shoulder.
Damn! She leaves me and her hair grows.

Her right eye was swollen, a dark crescent underneath.

“What happened to you?”

She looked straight at me. “What do you want, John?”

I reached to touch her face and she slapped my hand. “Serious, who hit…” It came to me. “I’m sorry, Doreen, it’ll never happen again. I promise you that.”

“What do you want?”

“I want my wife to come home. I miss you so much, I really do. What can I say? I made a mistake, several mistakes, but I want to make it up to you…if you’ll let me. Name it, whatever you want I’ll do it. Two jobs, three jobs, whatever you want me to do, baby, just come back home.”

Doreen looked at the ground. “I want you to stop smoking dope, John, that’s all I want from you. That’s all you need to concentrate on now, stop smoking dope.”

“Okay, baby, I can do that. Not a problem--when you coming back home?”

“John, you’re high now.”

“No, I’m not. My eyes red ’cause I been up all night thinking of you.”

“Yeah. You really need to go. Pooh stops by every morning for breakfast. He sees you over here there’s going to be trouble. You should leave now.”

“Damn a Pooh! Let me ask you something, be honest with me. You don’t have a boyfriend, do you?”

Doreen gave me a look but didn’t respond.

“The reason I asked, it seems kinda funny you ran off the way you did. Makes me wonder if you had somebody all along.”

“You’ve lost your damn mind, haven’t you? You stole my money, hit me, tried to hurt my son…Crack has convinced you it’s my fault. You really need to take a good look at yourself when you land, John. You also need to look at your buddy, Fifty. ”

“Doreen, it wasn’t all your money. We’re married, it was
our
money.”

“Is that right? I don’t recall agreeing to buy crack with it.”

“I said I was sorry. Baby, look, forget all that, come home, okay? Let’s be a family again. You, me, and Lewis, we were a family, don’t that mean anything to you?”

Doreen closed her eyes. “It meant the world to me, John. Dammit, don’t you know that?” She paused, took several deep breaths. “Remember I told you I watched my father die? Seeing you in the bathroom with that pipe I felt the same way, like I was watching someone I loved die. Then you hit me, went after Lewis. That killed everything, everything we’d worked for, everything we dreamed of. It’s over between you and me, John. I’ve filed for divorce.”

She started to go back inside but I held the door shut.

Doreen said, “I’m telling you this one time, only one time, so you’ll know. You ever again put your hands on me, or my son, I’ll kill you!” Sounding if she could do it now.

I let the door go. “Five years of marriage, one fight and now you talking divorce, talking about killing me, your fucking husband! Doreen, I said I was sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Doreen said, “but that doesn’t help matters, does it?”

“Nobody lets a marriage go that easy, Doreen. Unless a third party is involved. Tell the truth, you’re seeing someone else, aren’t you?”

Doreen started to say something but stopped. I followed her gaze and watched a blue Yugo stop in front of the house.

Doreen said, “You need to leave now, John.”

That sounded like a good idea to me and I started to leave when Oscar bolted out the Yugo, shouting obscenities, running toward me, a gold chain on his thick neck flopping up and down.

The drama played with a quickness, a movie on fast forward. One instant Oscar was charging toward me, the next he was grabbing me by the knees and lifting me up, and before I could throw one single punch at his ugly head I was on the ground with him on top of me, doing all I could to get him off.

* * * * *

Doreen and I started up Pinnacle Mountain with her in the lead, taking our time walking up the path flanked by fir and pine trees. We’d climbed the mountain before, right before we got married.

The path gave way to a rocky incline, though we could still walk it, leaning forward a little and watching each step. Nearing the peak, Doreen stopped and I offered her the canteen from my pack. After a long drink she kissed me and I wiped the sweat off her nose with my hand.

At the top we held hands and looked across a green sea of trees at the Arkansas River, the tall buildings in downtown Little Rock, Interstate 540, watched planes come and go at the Little Rock Airport, watched a brown-and-white hawk hover in the air like a slow-moving hummingbird.

Doreen pointed at the hawk and said, “He sees something, a mouse probably, and he’s waiting for it to rear its head so he can drop on it.”

“Is that right?” I said, and pulled her close. Held her a long time despite the intense heat beating down on us from a white sun that seemed a rock’s throw away. “I love you, Doreen.”

“I’m sure you do.”

That wasn’t Doreen’s voice. I opened my eyes and looked at Fifty staring down at me. Something was on my head and my mouth felt numb. Cindy was sitting in the chair by the bed reading a magazine.

Fifty said, “I’m glad you woke from that dream. I thought a nurse might walk in during the climax, you know what I mean?”

I felt the bandage on my head and then gingerly patted my mouth. No doubt about it, it was swollen.

Fifty said, “You all right. A couple teeth missing and some stitches, that’s about it. How bad the other guy look?” He thought that was funny, looked at Cindy and gave her a wink. “You made the news, you know that? ‘Man found fucked up near his car.’ Cindy says to me, ‘That’s John’s car,’ and we rush over here. Told them you were my brother, okay? Cindy likes you John, you know that. Ain’t that right, Cindy?” She nodded, not looking away from the magazine. “She thinks you oughta come live with us for a while, at least till you’re able to chew solids.”

I shook my head.

“Okay, turn down the invite. Hurt Cindy’s feelings. Come on, we’ll give you a ride wherever you want to go.”

I shook my head again.

Fifty said, “The nurse didn’t mention brain damage, so it’s time to get real. You don’t have insurance you got to go. This an emergency room, they’ll be needing it soon. Right now, whether you like it or not, Cindy and me all you got.”

* * * * *

Sitting in the back seat of Fifty’s BMW, I grunted when he took the wrong exit to my apartment.

Fifty said, “Chill out, okay? I’m taking you to get your car. You want your car back, don’t you?”

At Gloria’s house Doreen’s Camry and the Lincoln were gone. The Yugo was parked under the carport, my Caddy behind it. No, I didn’t want my car.

Fifty parked across the street from the house and we sat there several minutes before I mustered the nerve to get out. The front door was open and I could hear Jerry Springer on the television. The Caddy was locked, all four windows rolled up, and no keys in the ignition.

I went and got back inside the BMW and motioned for Fifty to take off.

“Wait a minute,” Fifty said. “Doreen’s mother lives there, right? Knock on the door and tell her to give you your keys.”

I shook my head and grunted several times, trying to convey to him that it might be Oscar instead of Gloria inside the house.

“What was that, John?” Fifty said. “You’re worried about round two? Look at this.” He held up a long, silver-plated gun and I grunted even louder. “Your partner, Fifty, got your back. You go up there and tell whoever the fuck’s in there give you your keys. They give you some shit about it they’ll be sorry they did.”

Fuck that!

More minutes passed and Fifty said, “John, trust me, I’m not letting you get your ass whooped two times the same day. You don’t get your car now I’m not bringing you back out here. You wait a few days, who’s to say whoever whooped your ass won’t sell it?”

Who’s to say I knock on the door and Oscar run out and whoop my ass again while Fifty sat in the car laughing way too hard to even think about pointing his gun?

Cindy said, “Look,” and Fifty and I looked at the house to see Oscar standing on the porch. No shirt or shoes, his fat belly spilling over the front of gray extra-large gym shorts.

“Hey, punk,” Oscar shouted, “you want these keys you better come get em!”

Fifty said, “He’s talking to you, John.”

The walk to the house seemed a mile long. Oscar held the keys out and then dropped them on the ground before I could take them.

“What happened this morning,” he said, “that was a rehearsal. You put your hands on my sister again I’ll show you the real thing. You catch my drift, punk?”

I grunted, “Yes, sir.”

Oscar chuckled, a whiny hee hee. “Kick your ass you elevate me to sir. I like that.”

The Caddy started right up and I backed out of the driveway, blew my horn at Fifty, and sped off down the street.
Damn em all!

Inside the apartment I looked in the mirror and almost fainted. Two knots bulged my forehead just below the gauze bandage wrapped around my head. My mouth looked like an elephant had stepped on it: swollen, split, a dark space where two front uppers belonged.

Someone knocked on the door and I heard Fifty’s voice.
Fuck
him!
He knocked a long time. Not long after Mama knocked a long time too.

Taking off my bloody T-shirt I finally discovered the source of that noxious funk filling every nook of the apartment. Me.