CHAPTER 7 (EXCERPT)
If the clouds be full of rain, they
empty themselves uponthe earth: and if the tree fall toward the south, or toward the north, in the place where the tree falleth, there it shall be. Ecclesiastes 11:3
It was late
1983, and I was still seven years old, when Mommy started to bring my sisters
and me to the crack house. She started
off taking us with her, and did for several weeks, but later as her habit
progressed she would leave me alone with my sisters for hours and sometimes
days. Debbie and Ricky ran a crack house
out of their apartment in building 1184, which was right across the street from
my building. A crack house was a place
where drug dealers bought, sold, and cooked crack. Drug dealers asked a person addicted to drugs
to run a crack house and in return, the dealer supplied the addict with drugs. That was Debbie and Ricky’s hustle for
getting high. A person strung out on
crack was called a “crackhead.” Crackheads
would go to Debbie and Ricky’s house with the intentions of taking only one hit
and then leaving, but end up getting stuck there until all of their money was
spent. That was the disease of crack. It was designed to make you want more.
Most crack houses looked the same. They were poor and bare inside because a
crackhead would do anything, sell everything, including their own child, to get
high. Debbie and Ricky’s crack house had
a table and a sofa in the living room. There
were no end-tables or lamps, only a ceiling light in the hallway by the front
door. The walls were dirty and bare,
with beige chipped-off paint. The
hardwood floors were sticky and dirty. I
felt like I was walking on dry juice. Black
garbage bags were used as shades for the windows, and the refrigerator was
always empty. Mice roamed around the
kitchen as though they owned the place. The
roaches had grown into full-blown water bugs.
They openly climbed on the walls and flew around the apartment. The smell of crack filled the whole apartment. It almost overtook me, like a backdraft from
a fire. What bothered me the most about
the whole situation – they didn’t own a television or a radio.
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