Previously: Me and my new friend met a lady who take us to her dealer. We cop crack cocaine for me and heroin for my homeboy, and we went by her friend apartment in the ghetto. My homeboy went to the bathroom. He come out buck naked and crazy high. I took a hit of my crack cocaine and felt I was in a whole new world. All the pressure and drama was gone. It was like my first time gettin’ high again. We got ourself together and headed back to the Armory where we stayin’. They had a lot of police cars there, and the high had me thinkin’ they was waitin’ for me. With me not bein’ affected with drugs for a few weeks, the crack cocaine hit me strong…
We had told the doughboy—the dealer—where we was stayin’ and after that, guys start comin’ by the Armory in nice-lookin’ cars, tryin’ to meet some South girls.
One day I be sittin’ outside with my homegirl Cheryl and her friends. This guy drive by, blowin’ his horn at them. He act like he tryin’ to help them, but he and the others, they trying to take the girls to they house for overnight stay and flirt.
Some of the women didn’t even know what was goin’ on and couldn’t be bothered. They for sure don’t want to date him. But some of my homegirls fall for the okeydoke.
Cheryl say, “I’m worryin’ about gettin’ myself a place to stay. I’ll throw a brick at that car if he bother me again.” I know she would do it. I was glad he didn’t pass back.
I told her, “Let’s go inside.”
One of my homeboys, we used to sit on the cot bed and talk in the dark before going to sleep. One night he went out in the hood and copped some drugs, like embalming fluid, what they put in people bodies when they die. It mess up the head.
Cheryl come and tell me he in the bathroom, seein’ things, hollerin’ and screaming. That junk have you thinkin’ you could fly.
With having drugs on me, I didn’t want to go near that. We had a lot of security there.
They took him to the hospital. After he came out, I ask, man what did you smoke? He say nothing and I say man you don’t lie to me—we both from New Orleans.
One inmate I knew from prison in Angola be full of that stuff one time and threw kids from the fourth floor of the project building. Them kids died. The project people beat him, and he end up with only one eye from the worst whoopin’ he got in his life.
Now, at the Armory, counselors started comin’ around with lists of names of people about to be moved to hotel rooms. My name be on the list. They took us in a van to TraveLodge.
Every Tuesday and Thursday they take us from the hotel to some big ol’ church. It like a store in the basement of the church where you can shop with a voucher. We buy clothes, cereal boxes, milk, hamburger, cheese, hot dog sandwich, and fruits. In the hotel room, I had a microwave and a little refrigerator.
A week or two later they give us gift cards with $395 and take us over the bridge to Walmart. We did 90-minute speed shopping. We come to find out the football player LaVar Arrington, number 56 for the Redskins, had give us that. He was there and I shook his hand. His hand make three of my hands.
I got a Saints Starter jacket, just like the one a friend in New Orleans got killed for. That kind of killin’ happen a lot where I’m from, like what happened to my cousin.
To be continued . . .
