I called Hope again when we were about five minutes away. She answered on the first ring.
“He hit me and I’m bleeding, can you come and get me, please, Dee?” was all she said before hanging up. I couldn’t get a word in. I pulled my pistol off of my waist, and sat it on my lap.
“Yo, Brock slapped Hope, split her shit too,” I said as I popped the clip in and out of the gun.
“Why she wit his li’l ugly ass anyway? Ellwood, right?”
“Right,” I replied as Nick parked about a half block away from her house. I told him to stand by the back door just in case he tried to run. I walked around front and tried her door—it was open. I held my weapon and slowly crept up to their apartment.
Knock knock knock…
“Go away, I fuckin’ hate you!” came from the opposite side of the door.
“Naw, it’s me, Dee!” I said, tucking the pistol.
She opened the door. He had left her face all lumpy and red. Her skin was puffy and bruised, covered by a mangled head of hair. I couldn’t tell where the tears stopped or the blood started.
“Yo, pack some clothes and come with me,” I said.
Frantically she started throwing some of her things into a trash bag as I waited. Brock came in through the front door laughing and headed up the steps. I opened their apartment door and stood behind it.
“Hope, baby. Ha ha, I love you, girl, where you at?”
He walked in and shut the door, and my pistol met his face. He raised both of his hands straight over his head.
“Chill, Dee. Hold up, what’s goin’ on?” said Brock as he backed up into the wall.
“Get on your fuckin’ knees. Hope, hurry up!” I shouted as I patted Brock down and checked him for a weapon.
Hope saw me holding the pistol and dropped the bag.
“Oh my God, what are you doing? STOP!”
I spun around. “Get your shit Hope!”
Brock grabbed the gun and we tussled. My hands locked on it but I couldn’t pull it away; he was three times stronger than me. We hit a wall and knocked some stuff on the floor. Nick ran in and slapped him across the head with his gun. All three of us fell, but only Nick and I got up. I rolled him over.
“Hold his face!”
Nick put him a chokehold, similar to the ones that cops sometimes used on us, and angled his face in my direction. I gathered myself and gave him a series of pistol-saps across the mouth, enough to cause a splatter on my sneaks and tee. Hope’s screams narrated the beating. Nick pulled me off. Hope said something about calling the cops, and Nick yelled, “Nigga, she buggin’, let’s book.” I didn’t say a word. I just ran down the steps behind Nick, jetted up the block and hopped in his car.
“Fuck is up with her? Callin’ the cops on us and he split her shit, dat’s dumb,” said Nick as we rode up Madison. I told him to stop at the CC’s Carryout so I could grab some more vials. I dialed her number and it went straight to voice mail. We hit CC’s five minutes later. Todd from Greenmount—one of the dealers I gave samples to—was standing in the doorway when I exited the car.
“Todd, wassup, man?”
“Nigga, you wassup!” he replied. “Nigga, you that nigga!”
He went on to say that Rockafella was the best crack that he had ever sampled in his life. Junkies who hit it were dancing, rejoicing, throwing up, racing all over the street, and begging for more all day. They even told their junkie friends who told their junkie friends. His block must have looked like a casting call for “Thriller.”
And it wasn’t just Todd, everybody was looking for me all day, and he wanted to buy ten thousand dollars’ worth of whatever I could get him that night. Nick and I had three more similar conversations on the way back to the house. East Baltimore had gone Rockafella crazy that quick.
“Yo, we about to jam,” I told Nick as he parked in front of our crib. A lanky silhouette materialized from the alley. “D.O.C.” was tatted across a gray sweatshirt that approached our car. Nick reached for his gun but I stopped him—Hurk was back.
We bear-hugged. He couldn’t have been freed at a better time. He didn’t have to hide anymore and we had the best shit in the city, or at least in east Baltimore, anyway. Nick made Hurk test-drive his car through downtown. Hurk was ready to talk business and said that he wasn’t going back to jail. He said that his reckless days were far behind him. Nick was eager to tell Hurk about my cooking skills. I just called Hope over and over again but no answer—straight to voice mail every time.
“So what can I do, Dee? I’m ready to work tonight,” said Hurk. I didn’t want him to do too much in the city because he was scorching hot. His rap about never going back to prison was cool but words are just words—you had to show me.
We rode back to my house and I immediately went to work. I cooked the other half brick that I had pulled out the previous day while Nick and Hurk sliced and capped crack rocks until their fingers bled. Gee came by and picked up his work.
I called Hope one more time. The phone rang but she still didn’t pick up. I wasn’t sure why she was ignoring me; maybe she was angry. I just wanted to help and I felt like I did the right thing. She’ll come around, I thought, before I popped two Perks. One was really good, two felt like new pussy, or money—no, two felt like real love.