over once again before looking ahead as the high rise projects rose
in the distance like silent watchmen.
Once they arrived at the Projects, they rode the elevator to the
eighth floor, went to the familiar apartment, got a few caps and a
couple of bags heroin and left the building in a rush.
They walked about five blocks when they wound up in a row of
abandoned twin homes. He led her through a narrow alleyway that
separated two of the houses, and then he disappeared through a
large, man-sized hole in one of the buildings that led into the dining
room. She followed, carefully stepping over broken beer bottles
and shattered pieces of wood.
“Come on.” He said gruffly as he moved through the pitchblack
building as if he owned it. “Up here.”
She followed his voice, as she listened to his footsteps ascend
the rickety stairway to the second floor. He made his way to the
last room in the back that faced what would have been the
backyard.
“Sit down.” He said.
“On what?”
He lit a candle and set it on the floor. Then without saying
another word, he covered the two windows with a worn blanket that
smelled remotely of cat piss. Kaliyah looked around the room. She
had been in worse places, although not by much. The whole
building smelled of damp rotted wood, human feces and old
garbage. Kaliyah didnʼt notice it. Instead, she pulled out her
homemade pipe and waited anxiously as he emptied two caps into
his straight shooter and lit two matches. She sat down on the old
worn mattress that dominated the room. After a moment that
seemed like an eternity for her, he gave her a cap which she
dumped into her pipe.
“Light me up.” She said quickly.
He lit two matches and watched her as she inhaled deeply,
pulling the smoke into her lungs. He couldnʼt see her eyes, but he
knew what was happening. She fell silent as she held the smoke in
her lungs, and then exhaled slowly through her nose.
“Damn.” She murmured to herself as her mind began to soar.
“So you gotta name?” He asked while emptying another cap
into his pipe.
“Kali.” She said through closed eyes.
“You from ʻround here?”
“I stay up in Carver most time.” What Kaliyah wanted this guy
to do more than anything was shut up and let her enjoy her high.
She was hoping that he wasnʼt one of those talkative niggas that
didnʼt know when to shut up when they got high.
“Here.” He handed her a cap, a tall boy by the looks of it, and
then pulled out a syringe, a spoon, and a rubber hose.
Kaliyah didnʼt get down like that, but she was willing to sit
aside and let him do what he needed to do. Maybe if he fell into a
coma-like sleep, she could pick him clean for the rest of the caps
he had on him. She opened the capsule and tapped some of the
crack into her pipe, and then lit it with a single match. She had to
pace herself. She didnʼt know how much he had left on him, and if
it were a decent amount, she didnʼt know if he were intent on
sharing. She could only assume he was.
She watched him as he injected something into his veins, and
then she waited. She watched him carefully through swirls of crack
smoke, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. She didnʼt want
to give him any reason to put his guard up.
“Can I do sumthinʼ to make you feel better?” Kaliyah asked as
she lit her pipe up again.
“Naw.” He said with a slur that told her that it wouldnʼt be long
now. “Iʼm straight. Here.” He fumbled into his pocket and passed
her another cap.
She dumped the rest of the first tall boy into her straight
shooter and lit it hurriedly. She could feel the heated rush as the
cocaine surged through her system, hitting her in waves. And in
that instant, she wanted to feel his hands on her, grabbing her,
squeezing, caressing, probing…making her wet, doing things on
that mattress that only people that got high together would do. For
about a minute, she wanted to feel him deep inside her. She
pictured him on his back while she rode him, bouncing and gyrating
on top of him until he couldnʼt hold back any longer. And then
reality kicked in and she was back to her normal self, plotting on
how to get the rest of his drugs away from him. She wanted to get
high more than she wanted to fuck. He mumbled something and
she hadnʼt heard him.
“What you say?” She asked.
“Blow the candle out.” He murmured softly.
She smiled to herself.
“This how you want it?” She asked him seductively.
“Yeah. In the dark. I like it in the dark.”
Kaliyah bent over and blew out the candle…and all hell broke
loose.
The man was instantly on her like a black shadow, punching
her viciously. She would have screamed but he had taken her
completely by surprise. He threw punch after punch, one landing
on the side of her head causing her to see stars; another smashing
her nose turning it into a squashed tomato.
What terrified Kaliyah wasnʼt so much the viciousness of his
attack as it was the lack of sound. He said nothing while he
slammed her. A kick to her ribcage knocked the wind out of her,
causing her to go sprawling. She struck back at him, clawing
wildly, making guttural primal noises from somewhere in her throat.
She knew that if she didnʼt, she would die in here, and she wasnʼt
trying to die in this abandoned house. But it was totally dark, and
she couldnʼt see anything until he hit her again. She rolled across
the floor in an attempt to escape, but it was as if he had infrared
vision and he was on top of her again, punching her with brute
force.
He had blackened one of her eyes, and it was beginning to
swell rapidly. Her lips had swollen to the size of mini-sausages.
She could taste her own blood in her throat, slick and coppery, and
then something snapped inside of her and she screamed, clawing
at the darkness, hoping that she tore something soft and vulnerable
on this man. She kicked savagely at his shape and then rolled over
on her stomach reaching for anything that she could get her hands
on to defend herself.
As luck would have it, her hands fell on a
piece of old piping. She rolled on her back and swung, feeling it
make connection with something hard and unyielding. The man
made a strangled gasp, and then the attack stopped. She heard
his footsteps as he stumbled across the room and out the door.
The adrenaline coursed through Kaliyahʼs body just as fast as
the cocaine had. She trembled in fear, high and anger. But she
was still in the house, and she hadnʼt heard him go down the stairs.
Holding the piece of piping in her hand, she stood slowly to her
feet, her one good eye opened saucer wide, peering into the jetblack
darkness of the hallway but seeing nothing.
She moved slow and deliberate, knowing that she was still high, but realizing
that she had to keep her head if she were going to make it out of
this house alive. She took a deep breath and immediately
regretted it. Pain sliced through her side, but she wouldnʼt let go of
the pipe. She was going to kill this nigga.
She stumbled into the hallway, trying to memorize where the
stairway began. Walking slowly, she felt along the hall not realizing
that tears were coursing down her cheeks. She had reached the
top of the steps when the man came at her from the darkness,
hitting her with a two by four in the dead center of her back.
Kaliyah fell down the steps, feeling each one as she bounced
against the crumbling wooden handrail and the wall. She went
sprawling face down on the first floor. From somewhere just above
her, she heard his footsteps descending towards her.
With anotherburst of adrenaline, she got to her feet and tore across the room
mumbling something that sounded like a prayer. Fortunately for
her, the dim light from the half-moon above shone on the hole in
the wall that they had entered in what seemed like a year ago. She
pushed her way through, expecting the man to be on her heels.
She stumbled through the alley, almost tripping twice on her own
feet. She raced out into the street crying, and then screaming, and
then falling onto her knees. She turned her head waiting to feel the
manʼs hands, and instead felt a cool spring breeze. The man had
gone…disappearing into the night almost as if heʼd never existed.
Kaliyah looked up The Block and saw something that she
thought she would never be glad to see…a police cruiser. And as
she crawled towards the edge of the sidewalk, the shock of what
had happened mixed with the cocaine caused her to fall into a dead
faint.
~ J.L. Whitehead
