White Lines (10 page)

“You fuckin’ bitch! You old, washed-up, beat-up bitch!” Jada was infuriated. Kelly smirked at her. Cara and the scowling black girl emerged from their rooms to see what all the commotion was about. From where they stood it looked as if Jada was losing control while Kelly was cool as a cucumber.

Jada took a deep breath, made her voice calm and soft, and said, “You seem like a smart woman, Kelly. Charlie calls you his wife, but why do you think he fucks all of us? Because your pussy is dry and your sex is whack, that’s why. Has he ever told you that my pussy is better than yours? ‘Cause that’s what he told me. He told Cara that, too.” Jada paused, smirking. “You can have your fuckin’ ten dollars. You know why? ‘Cuz all I gotta do is go back to Charlie and let him hit this pussy one more time. I’ll be running his old ass pockets again in no time!”

Kelly felt anger building inside her. She knew that Charlie had a weakness for young pussy. Charlie liked to pretend that he was just trying the young girls out to set them out on the track. But she knew that was bullshit, and that he really loved sexing young girls. Charlie would hit it again if he could, and this enraged Kelly. So she did the only thing that came to mind. She hauled off and punched Jada dead in her face. Jada stumbled back, but quickly recovered and came at the older woman like a cat. To Jada’s surprise, Kelly was strong. She tore Jada’s shirt off, and Jada fought the old bitch bare-chested. Then Kelly whipped out a razor and began to cut Jada’s torso all up. She left one big gash right down the center of Jada’s chest and a couple of other cuts and scrapes across her upper body. Jada just kept on coming. But before Cara and the
scowling girl could pull Kelly and Jada apart, Jada came away with half of the knot of cash that Kelly had in her pocket. Cara peeped this, and quickly pulled Jada outside and covered her with her jacket.

Jada was enraged that Kelly had resorted to scarring her body with a blade. She refused to go for stitches, although it was clear that she should. Cara tried to reason with her.

“Jada, that shit is wide open. You need to go to the hospital and let them—”

“I’m not going to the fuckin’ hospital!.”
Jada bellowed. Her blood soaked Cara’s jacket, and Jada seemed not to care. She was only thinking about the fact that Kelly had violated her. All she felt was outrage that Kelly had resorted to disfiguring her.

Realizing that Jada wasn’t going to listen to reason, Cara shook her head. “Well, you have to get that closed up,” she said. “Come with me.”

Cara took Jada to a nearby crack house. She brought Jada to one of the rooms in the back and gestured for her to lie down on a tattered old bed. “Here. Drink this.” Cara handed Jada a bottle of gin and told her to drink it straight down. “Don’t sip that shit. Guzzle it. You’re going to need the buzz. Trust me.” Cara left the room, and returned moments later with a needle she had sterilized over the kitchen stove and some thread.

Once Jada had gulped most of the liquor, Cara straddled her and sewed up the wound in Jada’s chest. With nothing to numb the pain but the gin oozing down her throat, Jada cried out in pure agony.

“Come on, ya tough bitch. You didn’t want to go to the hospital, remember? If you don’t lay still and let me do this, you’re gonna get an infection. And if that happens, you’re gonna be in even worse shape.” Ignoring Jada’s cries, Cara continued to sew her up.

Jada was in excruciating pain. But she bit her lip, drawing blood to keep from crying out too often. Whenever Cara paused, Jada drank the gin as if it were an anesthetic. When Cara was done, she sat beside her now drunk friend, and held her as she cried on her shoulder.

Jada knew that there was no going back now. She couldn’t work for Kelly anymore, and she wouldn’t go back to Mr. Charlie. She wanted the
pain to go away. She wanted the nightmare to end. She gave Cara a couple of dollars for helping her out. Then she and Cara sat in the crack house and got high together, both of them seeking refuge from a reality too harsh for them to endure.

Without Charlie and Kelly to set her up on dates, Jada began to freelance. She got money or crack from the local hustlers by sucking their dicks on the roofs of the project buildings for four or five dollars. She was still an attractive girl, despite the toll the drug abuse had taken on her body. And she accentuated it as much as possible. It was her business to stay pretty, to look
sexy.
Jada had always been petite, so she could wear cute little outfits from the cheapest stores. But when a woman has a nice body and a pretty face, it don’t matter what you have on. It’s the ass that gets men’s attention. True, Jada had lost weight. She was skinnier than she once was. But she still looked good. Jada was often seen walking around in tight pants, miniskirts, or painted-on jeans. She went braless most days, wanting the attention.

Jada and Shante had resorted to robbing bitches. Shante got hold of a .38 Special from Lucas, and they set out sticking up white women heading home from work, or at ATMs. She and Shante had gone back to boosting as well. The fear of getting caught was secondary to their need for the narcotic. Then finally they discovered the most convenient hustle of all: They started selling crack for Lucas and his crew. He would pay them in crack, rather than in cash, which worked perfectly for all involved. So everything had a purpose. The boosting was to keep them looking good, and to keep them with money in their pockets from all the stuff they were able to sell. The robberies gave them jewelry to pawn (although
they did keep some things for themselves), and working for Lucas fed their habits. Once they got rid of the package Lucas had given them, they would scurry to find him to collect their take for the work they’d put in. At the end of the night, they could count on that high. It made them work harder.

As she prepared to go outside to work on this day, Jada felt a sense of uneasiness. She had a strange feeling that something was going to happen that day. Still, she was determined to go out and get her high. Jada waited until Shante’s mother had left the house to go food shopping. She dragged herself out of bed, still teary and sad. She took a hot shower and got dressed, putting on her tightest jeans and a little tank top, and no bra. She did her makeup, and she brushed her hair.

They went to work that day for Lucas, selling in the lobby of 240 Broadway. They had been down there slinging their package for quite a while, and they were almost finished with their pack. Jada was anxious to finish selling what was left. She peered out of the lobby windows looking for another customer. Finally, one arrived. The Hispanic guy who came in asking for Lucas wasn’t familiar to either of them. Still, Jada went into the stairwell to sell to him, while Shante stood in the lobby standing watch. Jada and the man made the exchange, and he walked out of the stairwell. Jada stood there counting the money, making sure everything added up. The last thing she wanted was for any of Lucas’s money to be missing, which would give him an excuse not to pay them. She took her time, recounting the money, confident that Shante had her back. Then she checked her pack to see how much was left before she could go and get high herself. Only five left. Jada wondered how long it would take her to sell these few remaining cracks, as she headed back to the lobby. But to her surprise, when she walked out of the stairwell and stepped into the lobby, handcuffs were slapped on her wrists.

“You have the right to remain silent.” A plainclothes officer began reading Jada her rights.

“What the fuck is this?” Jada demanded.

“The guy you just sold to was an undercover,” the cop explained. “Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

Jada stopped listening, and looked around desperately. She saw four plainclothes cops. Shante was standing there in cuffs as well. Jada glared at her in contempt. “Why the fuck didn’t you say something, Shante?”

“They told me to be quiet, Jada!”

“So what?
What part of the fuckin’ game is that, Shante? You were supposed to have my back.” Jada scowled at her friend, pissed. They got arrested for the sale and for possession, and Jada was going to jail.

Jada was put in jail for ninety days, and then was sent to a mandatory drug program in a prison hospital for ninety days as well. Being in rehab at the prison hospital was no better than being in the prison itself. She was not free to come and go as she pleased, and any vistors needed to be searched thoroughly in order to gain access to the facility. Being in prison was torture for her, mainly because she was unable to get high. She thought about it every day, and she longed for that feeling more than ever. Once she was in the program, Jada couldn’t wait to get out. She wanted to get high so badly that it was all that she could think about. Rehab was not what Jada wanted at all. She didn’t want to hear that she had a problem or that she needed help. What she wanted was to get out, get high, and get back to where she had left off. She was resistant at first, unwilling to allow the counselors to convince her that she had a serious problem. She was irritable and nasty toward them because she wanted a fix. That was all she was able to focus on. Without that, life felt unbearable to Jada. But after a few weeks, she began to see the truth in what they spoke about.

The counselors at the rehab clinic were helpful. They told her about the pitfalls of addiction; about how, going back out into the world, she could be exposed to all the same shit again. They told her about how certain situations, certain people, even certain
smells
could trigger memories and make her want to use again. Jada was proud of the fact that she hadn’t used drugs in weeks. But she began to wonder if she’d be able to keep it that way. Now that she wasn’t high anymore, all she could think about was what she’d done. She thought about all the men she’d sold herself to. She looked at her body, at all the scars that Kelly had left her with. The large scar that was left when Cara had stitched her up so
poorly particularly bothered her. It all reminded her of how she’d degraded herself. She couldn’t stand the scent of musky men. The smell brought to mind all the nasty strangers who had humped, sweated, and come all over her precious body. And more than ever she wanted to escape. Sensing that she may not be strong enough to stay clean on her own, Jada decided to try to reconnect with her family. She sat down one Sunday afternoon while she was in rehab and wrote a letter to Ava.

Ava received her sister’s letter, and she was heartbroken. She wanted so badly to help Jada find her way. She wrote back to her sister, and after doing so she cried her
eyes
out. Their lives had taken such tragic turns. Ava looked at her sister’s plight and knew that she had to turn her life
around before she wound up just as lost as Jada was. Ava was getting high every day. She told herself that it was only weed, but she saw how quickly smoking weed had escalated for her sister. She didn’t want to go the same route. So Ava slowed down. She started smoking less, and eventually she quit altogether. She focused on graduating, and began to take her counselor, Mrs. Lopez’s, advice. For once, she began to see life through different eyes. Her dreams took on richer colors.

Jada received her sister’s letter, and she was so excited that she practically tore it in her eagerness to read it.

Jada smiled. She understood where Ava was coming from. She knew that Ava was disappointed. But she still loved her. And it made Jada feel good to know that her sister was still on her side. She felt so good about
Ava’s letter that she decided to write to her mother. Maybe this whole thing would be what brought her family back together again. Maybe her addiction would be what reunited them after all of the pain. She tried her luck.