Friday night we sat anxiously inside an apartment in McDougald Terrace, Durham’s largest housing project, also infamously known, as “Money Making McDougald.” We were supposed to meet Hood here at eight o’clock, it was now eight-thirty and he still hadn’t showed. A thick red-bone with micro braids had come to the door of the apartment and let us in. She’d walked us into the kitchen and told us to have a seat. The small area had the smell of a Jamaican house party the weed smoke was so thick. I loved it. Weed is just like pussy to me. I gots to have it. A few minutes later Ms. Red bone came strutting back into the kitchen with a thick Dutch Master, took a couple of deep pulls from it, and passed the blunt to me.
“What’s yo name? You cute” she asked me as I filled my lungs with the sweet smoke of the fire tree. Before I answered, I took the time to check her out for real. She looked to be about 5’3 with hazel brown eyes, banana cream skin and lips like Mary J. The wife beater she had on did nothing to hide the ripe melons that threatened to spill out at any minute. Her ass wasn’t super phat, but it was nice, round, and apple bottom shaped.
“Banks.” I finally answered as I passed the blunt to Shell.
“Ummm. Banks. I like that name. Sounds like money.” She smiled widely. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
“Ooooh some young dick,” she purred like a kitten. “I bet after you cum, your dick still stays hard. Don’t it? You know once niggas get to a certain age, they gotta take a break after they cum. Some bullshit right? You got a big dick?” She asked calmly as she walked over and stood in front of me. Damn! Redbone off the chain! I thought to myself. All it took though was an amused snicker from Shell, and I was on my feet confidently.
“You wanna check for yourself?”
As if it were the most normal thing in the world, redbone unbuttoned my jeans, reached in grabbing my dick in one hand and my balls in the other, as my dick sprang to life instantly! “Oooh Banks! You got a phat dick!” she squealed in delight. “I wonder if we got time to fuck?” She asked as she stared me in the eyes, just before a sharp knock at the back door seemed to startle her. “Shit!” She cursed as she snatched her hands outta my boxers and walked to open the door. Quickly I sat back down, as Hood finally walked into the apartment carrying a huge pot, big enough to sponsor a fish fry.
“Hey baby,” Hood grinned as he kissed redbone firmly on the lips.
“Hey boo. What took you so long? You know how I get worried about you easy.” Redbone was all innocence now. The shit was hilarious.
“I had to make a stop baby. Everything cool. What’s up my niggas? This my wifey Keisha. Keisha this Banks, and Shell.”
“Hey how yall doing?” Keisha said as she turned and walked over to the refrigerator. Damn, this nigga Hood really knew how to pick em, I laughed to myself.
“What the fuck is you doing with that pot?” Shell asked curiously.
“Oh, this pot right here is what we about to cook up the best hard in Durham with. If yall niggas ready, I say we get to work. Time is money my niggas.”
“What the fuck you mean if “WE” ready? Nigga we been waiting on yo ass!” I barked on Hood.
“Shit, say no more dog. Baby take this pot and put enough water in it to cook a half a chicken. I cook aight, but Keisha, she’s a motherfuckin master chef! The last cat she was with got shot and was paralyzed from the neck down. The nigga had coke like Escobar, and taught her to cook ten, fifteen birds at a time! She loyal as a motherfucker too. That’s why I gots to wife her.”
I watched Hood when he handed Keisha the allotted amount of cocaine, and immediately she started to do some kind of mixing and merging, with the coke and some Arm & Hammer baking soda. Walking to the stove, she dropped the mixture into a pot of boiling water and stepped back. I looked over at Hood grinning like a fool, and thought of Shell’s sister Latonya. Even though I knew she was a tramp, she was still beautiful with a banging ass body. I also knew that she could, and did, fuck wit top notch money getters. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what she saw in this clown. We all sat gawking at Keisha as she whipped and turned, stirred and whipped the cocaine inside the pot. Five minutes earlier, if Hood had arrived five minutes later, he would have been kissing his wife to be with my dick on her breath. Damn this life was taking off fast. I vaguely remember thinking. “Is this what crack does?” No. Crack does things a lot more devastating to people. Heroin, coke, crack, EX, Molly, it’s all the same. It’s all done to alter the reality of people’s lives. And to do that it takes money. If it were free, the government couldn’t make their cut off of it. They would probably cease to exist. With no one to oppress, there would be no jobs for the oppressors. The Untold Truth. Suddenly Keisha grabbed the hot pot off the stove, and ran over to the sink! Shell thought the same thing I did, as he jumped up grabbing his pistol!
“Bitch you better not pour that shit out! You fucked my shit up?!” Shell screamed looking from Keisha over to Hood back to Keisha. Merciless death showed in his eyes.
“Hold on baby boy, everything’s good!” Hood threw his hands up in front of him, pleading in a voice that trembled. “Go ahead and finish Keisha!” He yelled at his girl. Keisha stood graveyard still, frozen by the sight of the huge pistol, and the mad man type rage that Shell’s face was showing her! Obviously still frightened, she turned back to the sink to continue her task.
“Chill for a minute bru.” I spoke up calmly as I got up, walked over and stood behind Keisha. I could feel Hoods eyes on my back, but I knew he was glued to his seat. Although Shell had once again taken his seat, his Desert Eagle was still in his hand. My initial inspection was on point. Keisha was a bad bitch. Misguided and morally challenged probably, but a bad bitch still the same. As I stepped up behind her, I could visibly see her arms shaking. She was terrified. I snuggled up behind her, encircled my arms around her body, and began massaging her ample breasts squeezing firmly as I spoke. “Look Red, go ahead and do your thing. Ain’t nobody gonna hurt you while I’m here.” Slowly I felt the tension in her body start to subside.
“You sure?” She asked as she looked over her shoulder at me with the innocence of a child.
“I got you.” I answered with certainty.
Turning back around, Keisha snuggled her ass up against my dick as I watched over her shoulder. Slowly she ran cool, not cold water into the pot from the sink. A thick white foam covered the entire top of the water. Just as quickly as Keisha had ran to the sink with the pot, she dipped out and ran to the freezer, returning with a tray full of ice. Slowly she poured the ice into the foaming water, while I watched in amazement as the thick white foam that seemed to refuse to stop rising, took on form, then hardened in the pot instantly! The concoction in the pot, now resembled a crater filled moon. Slowly Keisha proceeded to pour water off as she dropped in more ice. A few short minutes later; Keisha, Hood, Shell and I, stood smiling at a pot full of hard white crack. The shit was so hard that we had to hit the sides of the pot with a hammer before any would even fall loose! Hood brought out a scale and weighed out the pots contents. Twenty- four ounces - eight grams, was the total. Keisha had brought back six extra ounces of hard, from the eighteen ounces of powder. “I coulda brought back more, but Hood said ya’ll needed some fire. That right there should have em running. I didn’t use that much baking soda and it still jumped back good. Ya’ll ain’t gone have no problems.” Keisha smiled as she caught my eye, quickly glancing away before her man could take notice.
“Well, what ya’ll wanna do? You can sell it by the ounce and make twenty-four stacks easy.” Hood grinned.
“I thought you said you could show us how to make more?” I asked immediately.
“That’s what I was hoping to hear my nigga. We can go hit the block right now. I need to get my clientele back popping. I’m bout to show ya’ll how to do this son.” Shell grinned like a fool. Suddenly I had an idea.
“Yo I know it’s a lot of niggas out there hustling, and all the heads already know them. Don’t nobody know us. When we step out, we aint taking that much. If the shit pops off like you say, we can always come back here and grab some more.”
One half ounce. Fourteen grams is what we took out the first time. At the time, fourteen grams of hard, would probably run you between four fifty and five hundred dollars. At Hood’s request, we cut it up into all dimes and twenties, and hit the block.
It was warm outside. Mid-August. The summer night’s breeze was one of the joys of living in the Bull City this time of year. At first, we stayed in between the buildings where men and women scurried back and forth in search of their drug of choice like roaches searching for food.
“Hood! Hood!” a woman called out from a project back porch.
“Oh, hell yeah! There go Kat. She knows all the smokers, and her crib be jumping late night.” Without haste, we all headed over to where the woman stood on the steps in semi darkness. Stepping in closer, the woman looked if I had to guess, to be about thirty- five, thirty- six years old. But whatever she was doing out here in these projects, was causing her to look fifty- five! She wouldn’t make you vomit or nothing, but you could no doubt see where the fifteen or twenty pounds she was underweight, would undoubtedly return her to a black queen. “What’s up Kat? What you need? I got that fire back again.” Hood announced with a sense of pride.
“I ain’t got no money right now Hood. Front me a dime till late night and I’ll let you pump outta my house all night for a forty. If you give me a dime now, you can just give me the thirty later on.” Kat spoke, trying not to sound like she was begging but failing miserably.
“Hell nah Kat, I ain’t giving no credit out tonight. I’m just trying to get back on my feet while I show my peoples right here how to get it jumping. And giving credit aint no good lesson. Hood answered stubbornly as we turned to walk away.
“Wait a minute Hood! Can I do something?” The pleading desperation in her voice was saddening. I was starting to realize that this world I’d stepped into, would bring joys, pains, heartaches, heartbreaks, and truths. It was all or nothing now though.
“Aaaah. Now you talking. Lesson number one my niggas. This rock rules the streets. We got it, they want it. What the fuck you waiting on Kat? Get on your knees.” Hood was feeling himself now as he thrust his pelvis out at Kat.
“Not in front of them Hood. Let’s go in the house,” Kat whined
“I ain’t going nowhere! I’m out here to catch this money! I damn sure ain’t going in yo crib right now! I know it’s a hundred crackheads up in there walking around like zombies! Now you want this shit or not!” Hood spoke loudly as he flashed the rock in his hand at Kat. Kat looked over at me with sad eyes. Then just as quickly, dropped to her knees in front of Hood, pulled out his dick and started sucking like her life depended on it! Shell and I walked away, not feeling that bullshit about a nigga standing there with his dick out. Only a minute or so later, we heard Hood grunting and cursing! “Uhhh! Oh shit bitch, That’s right! Goddamn bitch you can suck a dick! Whew! That’s right, drink it all! Don’t waste my shit! Whew! Damn Kat you can suck a dick! Whew! Didn’t miss a drop, neither did you?” Kat lowered her head in shame as she shook her head no. “Whew, Yall want some of this head homeboys, It’s smoking!” Hood grinned like a fool as he zipped up his pants.
“Nah we good. Just hurry up so we can get started.” I was already sick of Hood, and we hadn’t been out there thirty minutes.
“Okay dog. Whew! Kat I’m gone bless you for that superhead! Where yo stem at?”
“I aint got no stem, I got my straight shooter right here,” Kat answered producing a two inch long broken off car antenna.
“Damn girl, take these two dollars and go get you a real stem from the Arab store. Hand that shit here.” Hood commanded as he took the antenna from Kats hand and stuffed two rocks in the end of it. “Hit that.” Kats eyes lit like Christmas as Hood handed her back her pipe. Pulling a lighter from her bra, Kat ran the flame up and down the pipe, before holding the fire to one end, and sucking on the other so hard her jaws sank in. I listened to a sound like eggs frying, as she continued to suck on the homemade pipe. Suddenly Kat pulled the hot antenna from her lips and held the smoke in for as long as she could. Without warning, she exhaled a thick white cloud of smoke. The words she then attempted to say were all but incomprehensible. Sitting down on her porch steps, her eyes grew wide as she started to dry heave! My first thought was that Fletch had pointed us to his dummy stash, and whatever Kat had just smoked, could be fatal! It infuriated me that Hood was doubled over in laughter. This shit was serious! But before I had the chance to confront Hood about just what part he may have played in the sham, Kat finally got a few words out that were clear enough to understand. The four words that sealed my fate in the streets were, “That shit some fire!”