The Plug's Wife (15 page)

Somebody help me!” Tanya kicked and clawed at the beast on top of her.  She swiped at the man’s facemask but she couldn’t pull it all the way off.  She managed to claw a chunk of skin from his exposed neck however. 

The man roared like an angry bear.  “You ‘bout to get yourself fucked up!” he wolfed, slamming his fists into the delicate bones of her face.  Tanya felt her skin split like the seam of a fat man’s pants.  An explosion of pain vibrated through her entire skull.  The hit rendered her temporarily immobile. 

“Help me,” she gasped, not able to get enough air in her lungs this time to even speak.  Tanya had put up a good fight.  Her face was now a bloodied mess and her head pounded.  She could feel her eye slowly closing.  It was all for nothing.  The other man came rushing back into the room, his gun out in front of him. 

“Yo! What the fuck man?  This is taking too fucking long!” he said, beginning to panic.  “I’m sick of sitting in there with that crying ass kid!  I don’t care who kid it is, if that fucka don’t stop screaming I’ma silence him for real!”

“Shut the fuck up and help me.  This bitch just tried to escape!”

“Keep on fighting us and your baby is a goner,” the man who held Tanya’s son captive warned as he assisted his accomplice with subduing her.  Tanya stopped dead after she heard those words.  If it meant saving her son’s life, she would do whatever they asked her to do. 

The leader of the two, the one she’d fought aggressively, hoisted her up from the floor by her hair. 

I see you wanna play hard to get. Don’t you know that payback is a bitch?” The man wheezed between breaths.  “Help me tie this bitch up!” 

Within minutes Tanya was in a helpless position with extension cords binding her to a kitchen chair.  A wet dishcloth was shoved into her mouth and tied in place with string that usually held her recycled newspapers together.  Tanya hung her head.  What had she done to deserve this?  She had stayed away from the streets like she’d been instructed.  She hadn’t even asked any of Jesse’s crew for shit since his death.  Tanya couldn’t think of any legitimate reason for the attack today. 

“Now, like I was saying before you broke bad…” the leader said, yanking her head up by her hair.  He clearly took great pleasure in her suffering.  A sick bastard.  That’s who stood before her.  Tanya looked into his eyes with her one good eye.  It was the only part of his face she could see really. His eyes seemed eerily familiar. 

“I heard you used to mainline and give good head. Is that true or not?” he growled, yanking her head in a full circle so hard she heard something at the base of her skull crack.  Why did he keep coming back to that subject?  Did he know her from her drug running days? 

“Mmmm hmmmm…” Tanya moaned, shivering.  All she wanted to know was if her son was ok.  She pictured his innocent doe eyes, perfect button nose and heart shaped lips and began to struggle all over again.   

“Good, ‘cuz we gon’ try it out right now,” his words like a reptile’s tongue hissing against her ear.  Tanya watched in terror as he pulled the small orange stopper off of a slim syringe.  Tears burst from the sides of her eyes and urine leaked over her tied legs and feet.  That small syringe was worse in her eyes than any other torture method the man could have used.   

Tanya groaned loudly, trying her best to say no.  She struggled against the restraints, muscles and veins cording against her skin.  She moved so fiercely the chair scraped against the tiled floor. She shook her head frantically from side to side.  Her eyes were stretched to their limits.  Tanya started gagging on the rag.

“What you scared of?  This that shit you love right here?  Nah, you ain’t forget, did you?” the man laughed evilly, moving towards her with the syringe like a death penalty executioner holding the lethal injection. 

Tanya begged through the cloth; one last ditch effort for even an ounce of compassion.  Tanya knew that for her what he was holding might as well have been something that would stop the heart.. He might as well put a gun to her head and blow her brains out. 

She knew without Jesse around, she’d never kick the habit again once she got that first taste.  The man walked over, grabbed her head and forced it to the side.  Tanya moaned and tried to move.

“If you fuck around and move and this shit hits an artery instead of a vein in your neck, you a goner,” he said as he caressed the delicate skin of her neck.  Tanya stopped fighting.  For her it was already over.  This man was obviously the devil and hell bent on destroying.

              “This seems like a good one,” he said placing the syringe against her skin.  Tanya closed her eyes at the pinprick of the syringe.  The man pushed the plunger on the back of the syringe slowly.  His eyes glistened with deviant pleasure as he imagined what all he would do with her once the drugs took hold of his flawlessly beautiful hostage. Fuck what the people paying him had instructed him to do!  He was going to get one of those infamous blowjobs from Tanya.  He held onto her head as he watched her body react.

The drugs shot straight to her nervous system.  Her entire body tensed at first and more urine leaked from her bladder.  Tanya’s eyes rolled up into her head until only the whites were visible.  Then her body went slack.  He released her hair letting her head drop until her chin was touching her chest.  Tanya was back into a dope fiend nod; a feeling she had fought every day to forget. 

              “Yeah, that’s the shit right there, ain’t it?  And here it is, I thought you might OD on this almost pure white girl since you ain’t had it over a year.  But seems like you still got that strong resistant system.  They say, this girl is the devil and all it takes is one taste and a bitch will forget she was clean for any amount of time,” the man said slyly, proud of his work.

“Now, you owe me something,” he said smoothly.  He took the dishrag out of Tanya’s mouth.  Her lips were slack.  He took that as his opportunity to have his way.  Tanya could hear his zipper coming down.  She could even smell his musty balls.  But, she had no strength to fight.  She was lost in a world she had forgotten existed; a world where she had no problems and where she was no longer the discarded little girl with no mother.  Tanya forgot that she had a little boy and that he needed her.  Having the drugs in her system lifted her above the existence of reality.

The man forced his dick into her mouth with a force that had her gagging.  Tanya couldn’t even feel any ways about it.  She was high again!  When he was finally done and had got his rocks off, he pulled two more syringes from his pocket and left them on the table.

              “These are for you.  You might as well enjoy them.  You gon’ need them since you won’t be seeing your son again,” the man said cruelly.

“No, please,” she whispered.  Her head rocked from side to side.  Tears ran in steady streams out of her eyes.  The man untied her and she didn’t even try to fight again.  She curled up in a ball in the floor like a fetus in her mother’s womb.  She was so gone off the heroin she didn’t hear them carry her son away. 

Chapter 12 
Becoming a Family

Billy walked into Luxurious Ladies strip club carrying a sleeping Jesse, Jr. over his right shoulder.  He hoped the Benadryl worked until he dropped him off. Billy had learned the hard way how strong the little boy’s lungs were. 

Doon, Mitch and Marco were all sitting around talking business as Billy approached.  All three men stopped mid-sentence as he walked in.

              “What the…” Marco said first, his eyes stretched.  Billy lay the boy down on one of the cushioned wraparound benches.  Billy exhaled, his dark skin glistening with beads of sweat. 

              “Damn lil man is heavy! Solid like his pappy,” Billy harrumphed, flexing his neck and arms.  Nobody said a word. He knew from their expression that he would need to provide an explanation asap.

              “Yo, Tanya’s getting high again.  She called me and told me to come get shorty…said she can’t take care of him no more,” Billy lied, repeating exactly what he’d discussed with Summer the day they set up surveillance outside of Tanya’s house.

Mitch’s eyebrows shot up and he sprang up on his legs. 

“When?  When did she contact you?” Mitch interrogated, his head tilted to the side.  Billy may have been Jesse’s muscle, but Mitch had been the one to comfort Tanya after Jesse’s murder.  Mitch gave her specific instructions to contact him if she needed anything.  Mitch had promised Jesse on the day of his son’s birth that if anything ever happened, Mitch would take care of the boy.  In their business, a man’s son was his heir to the throne but also very vulnerable to outsider threats.

“She call last night, sounding like she was fucked up.  When I got to her, she was nodding out, looking like somebody beat her ass.  You know, the old Tanya before she got cleaned up.  I’m telling ya’ll, she definitely mainlining again,” Billy fabricated on the spot.  Sweat dripped down his back and his armpits itched.  He hated lying to the crew. 

“Word.  Why didn’t you call me about that and let me handle it?” Mitch pressed. 

“Yo!  I handled it…that’s all you need to know.”

Billy was getting defensive.  Mitch knew something was off with Billy’s story. 

“I’m gon’ have to go check her then.  Where she meet you at?” Mitch played along. 

“All you need to know is I got JB’s kid outta there safely.  That’s it.  You wanna go hunting dope fiends, be my fuckin’ guest,” Billy snarled, but didn’t budge from his story. 

“A’ight, then.  Well, I’ma take shorty to my crib.  He should be staying with his godfather, right?” Mitch kept on digging at Billy to see if he could get him to crack.  Mitch started walking towards where the little boy lay curled like a shrimp.  He watched Billy the whole time, gauging Billy’s reaction.  As Mitch reached down to pick up Jesse, Jr., he was paused.

“No need for you to take him.  I’m his stepmother so I’ll be taking him with me,” Summer announced from the back of the room.  They had all been so caught up in the awkwardness of the moment that no one noticed her approach. 

“Oh shit!  Don’t sneak up on us like that!” Doon wolfed, moving towards the lobby area. 

“Yo Misty!  Didn’t I fuckin’ tell you to let me know on the intercom when anybody came in here! She could’ve been a killer coming to murk my ass!” Doon barked at his hostess.

“You knew about the baby?” Marco asked Summer, his expression even.  He remembered Jesse telling all of them how he was going to take her on a trip to Dubai or Singapore and break the news to her. 

              “No thanks to any of you,” Summer snapped sarcastically. 

              “Nah, he’s going with me,” Mitch insisted. 

Summer sucked her teeth.  She was growing tired of everything being a competition between her and Mitch. 

              “Don’t you have a business to run?  Why would you want a kid weighing you down?  You got big moves to make out here in these streets,
boss
.” 

Summer tried to respect Mitch as a man and as Jesse’s best friend and business associate, but she was growing weary of him by the day.

When Summer sent Billy after Tanya, she’d wanted the girl to suffer for fucking with her man.  Summer also thought having the boy would satisfy the deep loneliness she felt.  Now, she was second-guessing her decision about taking on another woman’s child. 

              “I got a business to run and I’m hoping one of these days you just shut the fuck up and help me run it.  I’m a woman…we can run shit and take care of our kids,” Summer snapped. 

              “Yeah, but he ain’t ya kid.  He got a mother, who trusted me to take care of him if something ever happened to her.  Unless Tanya is dead somewhere, you gon’ be in for a fight.  Dope fiend or not…she’s a mother first,” Mitch felt the need to defend what was right. He couldn’t believe Billy or any member of the crew were down with something like this.

Summer felt like she’d been slapped in the face.  A warmth spread through her chest, up her neck, and into her face.

You think if we went to court over this that you’d win, Mitch? I was married to his father.  By law, I am his stepmother…probably next in line to care for him on the social services hierarchy of things. When the judge sends his mother for a drug test, her chances will be over. An old friend and unofficial godfather has no standing in court. The boy will be going with me.  No more discussion is needed,” Summer ordered. 

              Mitch’s insides went up in flames.  He wanted to take his gun from his hip and shove it right between Summer’s smart ass lips.  Having more sense than that, Mitch lifted his hands in surrender. 

“You’re the boss.  I’m not going to fight.  It’s just crazy to me that you would want to raise your husband’s love child.  But, hey, I guess some of us are more forgiving than others,” Mitch said, sending Summer a verbal uppercut.  Jesse, Jr. and the business were the only two things Mitch had left of Jesse and Summer didn’t want him to have either. 

              “Look, I got paper to chase and business to attend to.  Ya’ll stay with your boss playing house,” Mitch said as he exited the room.

              “C’mon, Billy.  Let’s take this little one home where he belongs.  In time, he’ll get over Tanya.  I’ll be the best mother he never had,” Summer said snidely as she watched Mitch go through the door.

Billy tucked Jesse, Jr. into the bed inside the guest bedroom of Summer’s house.  The little boy had awaken on the ride to the house, confused and distraught. He had screeched when Summer tried to console him, so Billy was playing nursemaid for the meanwhile.

Summer folded her hands across her stomach while she watched Billy.  She had a gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach.

              “You think he’s gonna be okay if he wakes up and it’s just me and him?” Summer asked, hugging herself with her arms.

              “Yeah, boss lady.  I’m sure he’ll be good.  I’ll come back early in the morning.  Shorty is my little man. He knows me so he should be a’ight.  He might start asking for Tanya n’shit and I’ll just tell him she’s sick,” Billy assured. 

Summer felt better.  She didn’t know anything about being a mother and it was making her more anxious than even taking over the business after Jesse died. 

              Summer sat on the edge of the queen-sized bed noticing how tiny the boy appeared in the center of the big bed.  The flowered sheets made him look like a character from a fairytale book.  His innocence sent a short burst of envy through Summer’s heart.  She could barely remember sleeping so soundly, even as a child. 

Summer examined her new son as his little chest rose and fell peacefully. His skin was almost the exact shade of Jesse’s, his hair a short crop of tight, dark, curls that hugged his scalp, also like Jesse.  His cheeks were plump and full.  His nickname should be ‘chipmunk’ she thought to herself.

When the boy had briefly awoken in the car, his soulful eyes had stared at her, a painful reminder of what Jesse had left behind. Summer hoped she could love this boy, despite who is mother was and what she represented.  Summer twisted her lips.  Tears suddenly stung her eyes.  She wondered what she and Jesse’s children would have looked like.  Jesse’s lady-killer eyes with maybe her perfect, angular nose.  Skin the color of smooth caramel—a perfect mixture of her butter and Jesse’s chocolate.  A girl with long, dark, naturally curled eyelashes just like Jesse’s or a boy with a strong, pointing jaw line like hers.  Summer and Jesse, unfortunately, had not been blessed with children during time together.  Summer thought maybe God was punishing her for her deeds by not giving her children.  Summer closed her eyes and touched her abdomen wondering if she was cursed.  All of a sudden a hiccup of a sob escaped her mouth as something she’d buried came to the forefront of her mind. 

                                                        *************************

She was nineteen and had been living and “working” in the United States for two years when it happened.  For an entire month, she had been deathly ill, vomiting, dizzy and weak.  One day, her boss asked her to piss in a cup and, without further explanation, sent her to a lady called a “bruja.”  The woman was promised to take care of all her problems.

              When she walked up to the small, raggedy ranch-style house in the seediest part of little Havana, her insides churned so badly it felt like her organs were being run through a meat grinder.  She had to lift the rickety white gate slightly off the ground in order to open it. The weeds and bushes in the small yard grew wild and unkempt like a miniature forest.  Ambling forward on jelly legs, she climbed the four crumbling cement steps up to a worn wooden porch. A makeshift plank door served as the entrance to the home.  A husky, bald man with a double chin stood guard next to the entryway.  He asked her in Spanish who sent her.  Upon answering, she was granted immediate access to the property. 

Inside, the heat and odor hit her like an uppercut from a skilled boxer’s glove. She nearly vomited on the floor.  The overpowering smell was like that of raw meat gone bad, rotting fish and ethyl alcohol all mixed in one.  There were two couches with girls sitting close together, like books on a well-ordered shelf.  The buzzing noises inside made her skin crawl.  There were hundreds of flies stuck to long strips of fly paper hanging around the room, like streamers at a birthday party.  A loud scream escaped from a back room.  Her stomach immediately knotted and sweat sprang up on her forehead. 

              She clasped her hand over her mouth, but it was useless. Hot vomit spewed between her splayed fingers like lava from a volcano.  A man cursing in Spanish grabbed her roughly and dragged her into another small room.  He threw a well-worn hospital gown at her.

              “Take off everything!” he shouted before he slammed the door.  She whirled inside the tiny room.  It smelled like body odor and antiseptic.  There was a bed with no sheets and a mattress with a rainbow of stains on it—a dark red one shaped like an island, a maroon one that trailed to the edge of the mattress, and a large yellow one that formed a  circle in the center of the bed.  The wall next to the bed also had dents and long dig marks from fingernails on it.  There was a small table at the end of the bed with a lone silver tray that had tiny drops of crusted blood.  

              Before she could undress a woman opened the door and walked in.  Grey haired, layered in several housecoats and moving at a snail’s pace, she resembled a hunched back witch. 

              “Off…take off,” the old lady rasped, clearly annoyed.  The woman tugged at her clothes until she removed them.  Spreading a dingy white sheet over the bed, the bruja placed several instruments on top of the silver tray. 

              “Lay…you lay,” the old lady demanded in broken English.  “Open wide,” she instructed.   “Drink…you drink.” She handed her a clear plastic cup filled with a dark brown drink. 

              “What is it?” she asked hesitantly.  The old lady didn’t answer, she kept clinking her tools and prepping for work. 

              Reluctantly, she raised the cup to her lips and immediately recognized the scent of alcohol.  She’d smelled it on too many men’s breath.  She sipped slowly at first, but the drink burned her throat as she swallowed.  Taking a big gulp, she forced herself to drink until the cup was empty.  She needed all the courage she could get.

              “Lay…you lay,” the old lady demanded, pushing her back. 

She didn’t have any fight left in her body; in fact, she felt like she was floating above the bed.  The lady’s cold, rough hands on her knees caused her to jump and pull her legs back towards her chest.   

              “Now! Now!” the woman barked, pulling her legs back down. 

The alcohol seemed to be kicking in.  Her head felt light.  Even the witch’s hands didn’t feel as awkward on her skin. 

              She felt the pinch and grind of the metal going inside of her.  The clinking of the metal tools sounded louder to her than the screams she knew were coming out of her mouth.  Without full control of her body, she instinctively dug her fingernails into the wall next to the bed.  Just like the others, she was leaving her mark on that wall of horror.   The fresh smell of blood was familiar to her and she took comfort in that.  As fast as the horror began, it ended.  She felt the cold steel slide out of her.  The instruments were tossed carelessly back onto the tray.