15
After I phoned D-Waite and told him Kim had left, it was one of the hardest nights of my life. Almost as hard as when my mother died. He told me to stay put in case she came back. I had a horribly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Whenever I called either of them I got no answer. I didn’t know if I was gonna lose one or both of the most important people in my world.
D’s boss had made it clear that he expected Damon to sell drugs to my aunt or to find someone else to do it. I didn’t think he would but I couldn’t be sure. Finally I couldn’t take waiting so I went to find them. It wasn’t the safest place but I left the door unlocked in case she tried to get in.
“Look-see, look-see,” Naynay shouted at me as I came out the building. A bunch of people were hanging out, smoking marijuana and listening to music. Somebody had hooked an iPhone up to a portable sound system. Even though it was after midnight there were little kids riding bikes and playing too close to the cloud of pot smoke.
“You got something to say?” Mika sneered at me.
“I was just looking for D-Waite,” I admitted.
“He tired of your inexperienced pussy already?” Naynay laughed, high-fiving a girl I hadn’t seen before.
“How’s your daddy?” Mika snapped at me. “Did you have nice little visit?”
“How you know I went to see my father?” I couldn’t hide my shock that she knew I had visited my father.
“For me to know and you to figure it out.” She rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t be surprised if you wind up right there with him.”
“Whatever! Any of y’all seen D?” I asked, but they all stared me down and refused to speak like I was an alien or something. I started heading toward the shooting gallery when Taj rolled up on his bike.
“Your man know you out here? Or are you looking for a new man?” he flirted.
“You seen D-Waite?”
“Earlier. Poppa’s not happy! He know what’s good for him he’ll stay missing. He shut it down for Crackhead Kimmie and some of the guys ratted on him. They always tryin’a come up and they don’t care how they do it.”
“Is he gonna get in trouble?” I was so worried about him.
“He’ll probably let him live.” The look of fear on my face must have been funny. Taj busted out laughing.
“What?”
“D-Waite gets out of shit. Dude’s like a cat. Most of us did real bids and all he ever got was a few months at juvie. So don’t worry your pretty little head.”
“I just wish he would call me,” I admitted.
“I wouldn’t be walking these streets alone if I were you. Real-life shit happens out here, especially at night.”
My phone beeped with a message. “I gotta go. Thanks.” I took off across the park, not thinking. All through the park I kept seeing derelicts, homeless, and people I wouldn’t want to see in the light of day.
“Baby, how much?” a couple of drunks shouted out at me as I passed.
“Hey.” I felt someone grab hold of my arm. “Get off of me,” I screamed out as I wrenched my arm away.
“This is our place at night,” a toothless homeless woman smoking on a cigarette snapped.
“This is our goddamn Vegas,” another voice yelled out. “What happens in here stays in here!”
Laughter followed me all the way until I reached the street. I glanced around, making sure no one was following me; then I crossed the street and went inside the apartment. The place was empty and I had to wait a few minutes until D arrived. He looked a real hot mess; his face was scratched up and his clothes ripped.
“What happened?” I screamed, imagining the worst.
“I couldn’t stop her. She just had to get that fix.”
“So you found her? Where is she?”
“You’re gonna have to trust me.” He grabbed me by the hands and sat me down.
“Tell me!” I screamed, ’cause now I was imagining the worst.
“I found her and she was nodding off under the bridge near the shooting gallery. She was a real mess. But when I picked her up she started fighting me off, clawing, hitting, and ripping my clothes. I had to get her out of there and quick before any of Poppa’s boys saw us. They may be my friends but they’re all about tryin’a take my spot. So I got her out of there and I took her to a guy I know. Used to be a huge junkie but he got on the wagon and now he helps people like your aunt get better.”
“He runs a rehab?”
“You can call it that. It’s a different kind of place.”
“Different how?” I got all suspicious and pulled away.
“They don’t ask questions and they get results. It’s a low-bottom place.”
“We got to get her out of there and into a real hospital.”
“She’d have to be willing to sign herself up, to commit to a program, and even then we’d have to find one.”
“But what do you know about this guy? What if he hurts her?”
“He’s not going to hurt her. He’s the real deal.”
“How can you be sure? What do you really know about this guy?” I saw something in his eyes that worried me. “Tell me.”
“He’s my father.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you didn’t talk to him.”
“I don’t. I mean I haven’t spoken to my dad in five years. Growing up he was so addicted to that stuff that he did whatever he needed to in order to get it. He would sneak into our apartment and steal the rent money. He stole my Discman. Our television. Anything he could sell quickly. We were almost homeless and that’s when I started working for Poppa. I had to support my moms and sister. I was a lookout, then a courier, and then a dealer. Five years ago my dad gets clean. Comes back to the hood and starts this underground program helping get junkies clean. I’m talking the lifelong addicts. He asks me to give up working for Poppa. Wants me to go back to school. Go back to my dreams, but it’s too late for me. I’m too angry and too used to being on my own to trust that I can trust him again. He gets my little sister and my moms out of the projects but I won’t go. Not much to say to him after that.”
“And you went to see him today? For me?” D-Waite pulled me into his arms. “Girl, nothing I wouldn’t do for you. He’s gonna take care of her. Said it can take three to six months ’cause she’s broken. Then she’ll go upstate to a different program, where she’ll get a job and a place away from here and start a new life.”
“You did that for me?” The tears kept falling down my face. I glanced up to see that he was crying too. “What, baby?”
“He begged me again to leave this place. I told him about you, that you were leaving in a few months to go off to college in Boston.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, and he asked me to go with you.”
“Will you?”
“I don’t know. What will I do?”
“You can start over. We will have a chance.”
“You really want me to go?”
“D, I need you. I need you so much.” I collapsed into his arms.
“Then I’m going with you. Baby, I’m going with you.”
For the rest of the night we talked about our plans and made love, sweet love, as if it were both the first and last time we’d ever touched that way. I fell asleep exactly where I wanted to be: in the arms of the man I loved.