Crackhead (10 page)

Dink hugged Crystal and lifted her off her feet, but with her back turned, it meant that he could study his prey—Laci. When Laci realized that Dink was burning a hole through her with his eyes, she blushed and turned her head. She used her tongue to scoop a piece of ice from her cup. Her smile let Dink know that she was finally onto him. And although he was involved with her homey, time and opportunity was a muthafucka. All he needed was an opportunity, and hell, he'd make the time.

Dink released Crystal. “I'll see you girls later,” he said, quickly
eyeing Laci. “Y'all be safe. Crystal, you go on and have a good time with your girls, ma.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of rolled-up hundred-dollar bills. Each of the girls had her eyes on his cash except for Laci, who knew better than to stare, and Crystal, who was checkin' to see who was sweatin' her man. “I'll be back later to check you out.” Dink pulled off eight bills, handed them to Crystal, licked his lips, and shot a quick last glance at Laci. There was no mistaking what his intentions were. This time she didn't turn away or look down. She stared at him right back. Dink nodded and left.

The girls were silent until they were sure he was out the door.

“Dink is a classy-ass nigga,” Monique said, picking at her nails. “He fine, too. You better watch him, Crystal. One day one of these loose-ass sluts is gonna try you. You can trust his ass all you want. It's these hoes you can't trust.”

Crystal nodded in agreement. Typically it would have struck a nerve for some other female to call her nigga fine. But Monique and Crystal were the tightest, like sisters, so Monique was the only one out of the crew who could make the comments she did without Crystal hitting the roof. The other girls just kept silent and stewed in their own juices, romanticizing the forbidden idea.

Laci looked down at her watch. “Well, ladies, it's been real, but I'm about to bounce,” she said, stretching. “I'm gonna go home and lay it down.”

Crystal looked over at Tonette; her eyes bulged. Tonette shrugged her shoulders as if to say,
“handle yours.”
Then Crystal quickly said, “But Laci, you're always on some leaving shit. You be acting like you're too good to be with us after a certain hour.”

Laci was surprised, because Crystal was usually the first one to shout “peace out” when Laci talked about going home. But
perhaps this was a sign that Crystal was really starting to appreciate her company. Most of the time Laci split if the girls were getting ready to go party, but this time she really was tired and was ready to call it a night.

“C'mon, you know that's not true,” Laci assured her. “If I didn't want to be around y'all, I wouldn't be. But a chick got to go home and get her beauty rest.”

Crystal rolled her eyes and twisted up her lips.

“That's fucked up, Laci,” Shaunna said.

“How do you figure that?” Laci asked defensively.

“Forget it.” Shaunna waved her off. “Leave, then.”

“Yeah, leave if you're going,” Monique added.

All of sudden, Crystal surprised Laci yet again. “I don't know about them, but I'm not letting you off so easy this time. I want you to stay, Laci. See, unlike these scared bitches, I ain't afraid to speak my mind. How I see it is that you sit up around us while we drink, smoke, and all that shit, and you even listen to us talk about our
real
sexual experiences. But you don't do none of that. Sometimes it seems like you using us as lab rats. You sit around taking notes on what you don't want to do. It's like you're sitting back and judging us.”

Laci's jaw dropped. She couldn't believe that this was how she had been making the girls feel. Finally, this explained why they were so sometimey with her. “You think I've been judging you guys?” Laci asked in disbelief. “Is that how you all feel?” she looked around the room waiting for someone else to speak up.

“Yeah, I guess that sounds about right,” Tonette continued. “I mean, how would you feel? While we're passing blunts and bottles, you're on some chill shit. Like you're propped up on a pedestal. You even act like being around weed smoke is gonna kill you.”

“But you know I don't do drugs,” Laci explained.

“That's some sad shit,” Shaunna said. “Weed ain't even a drug. It's a natural herb from the ground, baby—like fuckin' goldenseal or some shit.”

“If anything, I would say alcohol is more of a drug than weed,” Crystal added. “Who you know smokes a joint, jumps in a car, and takes out a family of five on the expressway?”

“You know?” Shaunna said, giving Crystal some dap.

“I know you don't drink, Laci,” Tonette said. “And I can totally dig that. But why you frontin' on the weed? A lil' smoke ain't gon' hurt you.”

Laci just stood there silently.

“Tonette, I don't know why you wasting your time,” Monique added. “Laci ain't gon' smoke with us. Privileged kids ain't got no time for us around-the-way girls. She's too good. I say let her go get her beauty sleep. The bitch can be pretty and we can be high.”

“Y'all gots to chill,” said Crystal. “Laci is part of our crew and y'all treating her like an outsider.”

Monique and Shaunna looked at each other with confused expressions on their faces. “Since when did you become Laci's best friend?” Monique asked with an attitude.

Crystal gave Monique a
“shut the fuck up”
look. Knowing Crystal so well, Monique knew that look better than anybody. Right then and there she realized she was up to something. The reason for Crystal insisting that Monique call Laci back to make sure that she joined them tonight was starting to come together.

“I ain't saying we're best friends or nothing like that,” Crystal responded. “I just don't know why my bitches is tripping over some fucking smoke. I don't believe that Laci thinks she's too good to smoke with us. As a matter of fact, I'll bet that she'll hit
the weed just to shut you hatin'-ass bitches up. Ain't that right, Laci?”

“You must be crazy,” Shaunna said. “Either that, or you smokin' on some different shit. If she won't hit a little drink, she sure as hell ain't gonna smoke.”

The fact that Crystal seemed like she was on her side made Laci feel obligated to at least take one puff. She didn't want to let Crystal down. This was the first time any one of the girls had stood up for Laci.

One pull couldn't hurt. It's just marijuana,
Laci thought.
Maybe this will stop the girls from always riding me. If one puff of the magic dragon is all it's going to take to show the girls that I can get down for mines, it's worth it.

“You got some?” Laci asked Crystal.

“Some what?” Crystal asked.

“Some weed, a joint,” Laci said. “I was thinking that I might need a little something to make my rest just that much better.”

Laci smiled a mischievous smile and the girls each returned one.

“As a matter of fact, I just happen to have some,” Tonette said. “It's in my purse in the living room. Hold on. I'll go get it.”

Tonette winked at Crystal and headed into the living room to retrieve the goods.

Shaunna looked at Monique in amazement. They had to admit that Crystal was good. Never in a million years would they have thought that Laci would ever jeopardize her pureness. Sure enough, Crystal was able to sway the naïve girl. Now it was time to sit back and watch the show.

Tonette rejoined the girls in the kitchen with the joint now in her hand. “Tah-dah,” she said with a smile. She handed it to Laci,
who looked at it as if it were a foreign object. Laci had never actually held a joint, not even to pass it on to one of the other girls when she was sitting in on their puff-puff-pass.

Laci examined the blunt with curiosity.

“What are you waiting for?” Crystal asked, moving the frying pan and turning on the stove burner. “Spark up.”

“Why don't one of you guys light it and then pass it to me?” Laci said nervously. The last thing she wanted to do was burn off her bangs trying to light a joint on the stove. “Shaunna, you're good at this—here.” Laci stuck the joint in Shaunna's face.

“Now you know I got a Wave Nouveau—if my hair catches on fire we all blowin' up.” The girls started cracking up, but Shaunna's face was serious. “You saw what happened to Michael Jackson with that Pepsi commercial.”

“Come on, Laci, quit playing with the weed,” Monique said, egging her on. “Either light the shit or pass it off. See, Crystal, I told you.”

Seeing the smug look on Monique's face made Laci angry. Laci was sick of all of them doubting her and was now more determined than ever to show them that she could hang. Cautiously, she leaned over the flames and lit the blunt.

“That's a girl,” Crystal said with a smile. “Now come on in the living room.”

The girls followed Crystal into the living room as if they were going to watch a pay-per-view movie. Laci sat down on the couch, and all the girls huddled around to watch her as if she were in a glass box and they had all inserted quarters in a slot to witness her fuck for the first time. Laci looked at the girls looking at her, and then without hesitation, she took two baby pulls.

“Give me a fucking break,” Crystal laughed. The other girls stood watching in amazement. They were impressed. They
didn't think Laci had the balls. “Did you see those sucker-ass pulls? Look, Laci. That is some good shit and I don't want to see it go to waste. If you gon' do it, do it. Don't be wastin' the shit.”

This was the Crystal that Laci was used to, but it was also the Crystal she no longer wanted to doubt her. Laci took two more pulls, only these were deeper. Her throat immediately constricted, causing her to cough. Laci began to feel light-headed.

The girls started laughing. To shut them up, Laci took two more deep pulls, only this time she didn't cough out the smoke; she blew it out. The smell of the weed began to fill her nose. Something was different; it didn't smell like what the girls had smoked before.

Laci looked at Tonette with glassy eyes. Tonette nodded, and like a good little soldier, Laci continued to hit the blunt. Laci could feel her face getting numb and her jaw trying to lock. Her ears began to ring, and she could have sworn she heard “On Cloud Nine” playing in her head. Laci looked at the blunt and smiled. All this time, she had been avoiding something that felt so good. A little toke on the Mary Jane wasn't that bad at all.

“My nigga,” Tonette said in amazement. “She did the damn thing. And that's some ol' chronic shit that we ain't never had our hands on before.” Tonette winked at Crystal.

Laci smiled as she took another long pull. She had inhaled second-hand smoke from being around the girls when they blazed. She had even caught a buzz from the smoke before, causing her to act a little silly. But she didn't remember ever feeling like this.

“Damn, you blunt hog. We said smoke
with
us,” Shaunna said, reaching for the blunt.

“No!” Crystal was quick to say. “Don't smoke that. As a matter of fact, you shouldn't even be around the smoke.”

“Bitch, I smoked during every last one of my pregnancies and you know it,” Shaunna said. “Keeps me from getting sick.”

“No, Shaunna,” Tonette insisted. She turned her head and gave her a stern expression. Shaunna threw back a puzzled look. “This one is
especially
for Laci.”

“Oh . . .” Shaunna said, nodding her head. A grimace stretched across her lips. “My bad. You right, I shouldn't be smoking anyway.”

Shaunna just sat there in the chair, decoding the cryptic language and actions. All of a sudden, the smell of the blunt began to fill the air. Just as Laci had thought, it had a different stench to it. Instantly the girls shot each other looks. Shaunna, realizing what it was, went to the bathroom. Crystal began to shake her head. She was amazed at just how naïve Laci really was. She was almost finished and still didn't realize what she was smoking.

Tonette looked over at Crystal. Crystal cracked a sinister smile. Tonette turned her attention back to Laci and watched her take another puff. She sat there watching Laci get higher than high and didn't do a thing to stop it. She felt like a coward for not telling Laci the real deal at this point, but Crystal was her homegirl. Laci was just another stuck-up bitch, or at least that's what Tonette tried to convince herself.

Laci rolled her head back and looked up at the ceiling. The cracks in the plaster turned into little streams, which Laci tried to follow, but she couldn't stay focused. Her eyes felt like they were going in two different directions at once. She looked at Monique and saw her lips moving, but she could only partially make out what she was saying. All she could see was her teeth, which seemed to be sprouting from her mouth at several odd angles.
She thought it was a side effect of the potent weed and kept pulling on the blunt roach. In her high-ass state, it never occurred to her that none of the other girls put up a fight or even reached for the blunt. Once she was too far gone to comprehend anything, all the girls sat down and had their own private jokes about the hell that they had just introduced Laci to.

L
ACI AWOKE IN
the middle of the night with a headache to end all headaches. Her eyes throbbed as she glared down at her watch. She had been out for at least four hours.
That was some bomb-ass weed
, she thought to herself.
That must be what they mean when they say “chronic.”
She tried to stand, but her legs gave out from under her. Laci flopped back down onto the couch and clutched her head in an attempt to stop it from spinning. She searched for something in the room to try and focus on. It was then that she realized she was still at Crystal's. Laci staggered to her feet and proceeded to look around the apartment. She searched the kitchen, both bedrooms, and the bathroom, but there was no sign of the girls. As Laci passed back through the living room, she noticed a note on the coffee table with a joint lying on top of it.