Hope was like my big sister. She always called me li’l bro even though she knew I had a stupid crush on her back in the day. Hope lived over in Bucktown, right across the street from where Nick and I planned on dumping product. I hadn’t kicked with her for some time but I was happy that I had reason to chill in her neighborhood. We could catch up and smoke while we clowned around about old shit.
Hope was about four years older and born supermodel ready with high-ass cheekbones, Colgate ad teeth, and dark, curly hair that reached her hips when braided. She looked a little better than a young Vanessa Williams.
Hope is from my old building but you wouldn’t know it. Her mom kept her far away from the street dudes and riffraff. She was active in the arts, never hung around public housing, and spoke perfect English, which is why I was startled when I found out she was dating Brock—a two-bit hustler from west Baltimore.
We used to call him Ugly-Yo and he’d proudly answer. Brock looked like a brown Shrek with thinning dreadlocks. His personality was as ugly as his face.
Hope and Brock shared a second-floor apartment and I had been through there once or twice. She knew how to create those impossible Ikea-looking store displays with glass ball–filled vases on modern tables over multicolored rugs. She also had pieces of her own artwork on the wall, mostly abstract stuff with deep meanings I didn’t get. The combination of her spirit and creativity made the place glow, despite it being in the center of a fucked-up neighborhood—think of a diamond surrounded by a bunch trash.
A few days after I cracked the safe, I decided to hit her up.
“Hey, Dee, baby!”
“What’s up Hope? How you been?”
“Not so great, can we talk? In person?”
I told her to say no more. I figured that Brock dumbass probably did some something stupid.
I pulled up to a murder scene. A kid had got his melon cracked a few steps away from her house. Police and homicide squads give me anxiety so I wrapped a blunt and tucked it. I hoped Hope still smoked.
The mob around the murder stretched way past her door. In these scenes, there’s always a grandma crying and a dude in a tank top spazzing out like “Yo, I’m kill dem niggas! All of Dem! I swear ta GOD!” all in front of the cops. That dude is normally bluffing—he’s not going to kill anything. He probably works a nine to five and runs a Bible study. The crazy act looks good, but it’s just a show. Real killers don’t say a word, they just catch you and blow your head off.
I got a little a peek at the body but I didn’t know who it was so I maneuvered closer and made my way to Hope’s steps. She had been watching the scene from the door and waiting for me. She greeted me with a soft kiss on the cheek and we rolled up to her unit.
Shockingly her place was dirty and smelled worse than the dead guy out front. There were piles of cruddy dishes everywhere, empty pizza boxes on top of empty chicken boxes falling from the trash can, crawling with roaches, and collections of Hefty bags with weird clothes all over the place—I kinda didn’t want to sit on the couch. I was scared that the odor of her apartment would get into my sweats.
“Damn, Hope. You good?” She glanced away and twiddled her thumbs. She looked dirty as well. She wasn’t raised like that. I wondered if she was a junkie. I didn’t really know how to ask in a polite way so I just came out and said, “Hope! You a junkie?”
She batted her big eyes. “No, silly, I’m just going through some shit.” Junkie or not, she was still beautiful. Her cheekbones were regal.
“Dee baby, you think you could loan me some money until I get back on my feet? I would never ask you for anything. I don’t know what to do.”
She had to be getting high or desperate to ask me.
“Damn, Hope. I don’t know what I’m holdin’, how much do you need?”
She said a thousand dollars. I told her that I’d let her know a little later. I told her I wanted to make sure that Nick and I were in good shape.
But I really wanted to make sure she wasn’t a fiend.
“What, you outta work?” I asked.
“Yeah, Brock kept calling my job and they fired me. I’m going to find something else but I’m pregnant.”
“Pregnant!”
Yuck was my first thought but I didn’t say anything. I’d give her a couple dollars; it wouldn’t kill me but would be everything to her.