Part 1
He jumped into his Buick LeSabre, maroon, and purple on the outside with deep velvet seats in the back that you could stretch out and barely be seen.
It was cold that winter the snow had started off as a pearly white, but later turned into the gritty grimy grey of late January, the snow piled up on the side of the streets with exhaust and bits of gravel cigarette butts and dog poop litter and throughout
He thought about his woman sleeping in her old warm bed inside their crappy apartment and the drugs he needed to score to get through another day.
She was soft and warm her brown hair curled across her face as she sat, lay there, smiling falling asleep after another round of tumultuous sex.
Maybe it was the rough sex maybe it was the love that they had for each other. He paused. ha! he thought the relationship was on the rocks. She wanted his parents money. He just wanted a fix. Somewhere to vent his frustrations just like you open the pack of cigarettes and jam them in to make sure you don’t lose any loose tobacco rip off the cellophane and wrapping paper pull one out and light it inhale deeply
Sex with her was the same. he had to get it. It was like a drug for him.
Speaking of drugs as he lit a cigarette revved up, the engine pulled the car into reverse he needed to score some weed. that’s right marijuana. It was his staple. He stayed high.
There was a girl who sold it to him now, a hot nurse, a teacher, or at least I think she practiced nursing in the Chicago public schools
She lived up the street on Ashland or maybe it was western before you got to the bougie nightlife, Milwaukee Avenue passed the university past the viaduct covered in scribbled scrolled graffiti surrounded by piles of dirty grimy snow.
He had just met her through another girl he met on Tinder.
That’s right she was the teacher. The other one was the nurse. he met her up at a bar in an up and coming but still edgy strip of restaurants. they got drunk off India pale ale, bitter beer with frothy tops that they pounded down fast. As they left the bar before saying Adeu, he and made out with her in the autumn breeze. He snuck up on her, hugged, looked her in the face, and then it was all mouth-to-mouth, again and again and again. He didn’t come up for air until he had to spit. The cigarettes you know. It happens sometimes.
That was nice, but that was over. Well maybe
Now he needed his fix of marijuana
Luckily, Molly only lived about 15 minutes away with no traffic so he headed up to the brownstone mottled red brick apartment complex, parked this car stepped over crunchy ugly gray snow, and rang the doorbell
She knew he was coming. He texted her as soon as he got in his car she’d be there waiting for him in anticipation.
Molly was a tall blonde with long silky legs and devilish eyes
She worked as a nurse in a school based clinic on Chicago’s West side
She liked electronic music and was always listening bobbing her head back-and-forth, bouncing up and down on her pink, plush couch in the living room, where she dealt pills and weed on the weekend
“Who is it”
John B.
“Come in babe. Sanam told me so much about you stud “
“Where to?”
“Second floor”
“Huh?”
“2B”
He walked of the stairs, creaking wooden slats and off yellow peeling walls, and then knocked on the door
She opened it a crack and was wearing blue shorts and a tight orange hoodie totally mismatched as if she hadn’t left the house all day
“Come in” Molly said “I’ve been waiting for you”
“A nice place” he lied.
It was a mess. They were clothes on the floor. No books on the shelves, just a few magazines, one covered in rolling papers tobacco and marijuana, stems, and seeds.
A few small baggies clear with red diamonds printed across them, sat scattered on the coffee table across from the pink plush couch.
“So tell me about you and Sanam” Molly lied
“Well.” He coughed. “The truth is on our second date she took me to a couples massage and then back to her place where we made a stir fry with too much mint.” He paused. She raised her eyebrows and took a sip from a soda in a blue and red bottle. “My fault really” I said.
That was true. We made the food but before it was done we kissed and rolled in bed she reached for my penis and pumped it until I was about to cum before she squeezed, stoped and proceeded to kick me out.
“Oh wow, that’s hot”
“Excuse the place I’m headed to a party and a little bit. I’ve got to get ready.” Molly motioned me to sit. I had been standing in the hall, standing in my boots, my black trenchcoat shaking off the cold by the greyish white radiator.
I took the cue. We weren’t hanging out at least not this time.
Molly looked me dead in the eye. her hair was blonde and she had this day old mascara, but perfect eyeliner. she winked and then said
“So John, tell me what you want”
“Yeah, I could use a QP of some OG Kush. that might last for a little bit”
“Slow down, babe” Molly replied.
“I can get you an eighth. I’m supposed to re-up in a little bit but not till later tonight.”
“I work with kids you see and I don’t always party until the weekend”
It was Sunday afternoon
“Do you party?” She asked, speaking in code. The weed was social. The other stuff is more lucrative.
“No, not really what do you mean?” I played dumb.
“Never mind, I’ll have to tell you about it later”
“Come here sit down I don’t want you running off too quick” she patted the sofa next to her.
“Why don’t you go half with me?”
I took out the $50 3 1/2 gram sack that she had just sold me and pinched a little bud and put it on the table
“Baby, give me that. wait, can you roll?”
I took the weed she gave me and then what I gave in crunched it up in my fingers with a zigzag, and in one motion rolled up the joint, licked the ends and put one in my mouth
“So how’s work?”
“It’s good I’m a nurse at a school clinic. I used to work in the hospital, but it got too stressful too hard on my back turning this heavy patients”
“Now I work at a charter school on the west side, giving vaccines, wiping kids noses, giving out sick notes”
I lit the joint and took a drag and passed it to her.
“Damn, this is goood.” I muddered, relaxing, inching slightly closer to her as I took a look at her right knee down her calf and shin to her pink nailed toes resting in flip-flops on the wooden floor
She took a drag and then exhale, and then said “can I give you one”
She inhaled deeply and motioned me to come towards her. I turned my head and leaned in. she grabbed my neck in her right hand the joint burning in her left one told me “open your mouth”
She exhaled the weed smoke into my mouth our lips locked for but a second as I inhaled deeply her exhaled breathe
“That’s good huh” said molly” Sanam tells me so much good about you”. She winked at me again and smiled
Just then I got a text message. It was Rita. Rita woke up and wanted to know where I was damn
“Hi babe, how’s it going? Yeah, I’m just around the corner taking a walk. I’ll be home in about 20. Yeah I just wanted to get some fresh air.”
“Hey Molly, I gotta go”
“Oh too bad I’m just starting to relax around you”
I got up adjusted my pants and shirt and I gave her a half hug
“Let me know if you’re doing anything later” Molly told me. “We may be going out to some house music in Wicker Park late night”
“Will do,” John B replied “ I’ll catch you next time”
He stepped outside, feeling relieved. the 8th ounce in his pocket felt good to grasp in the cold raspy air
Time to get back before he got caught
Just then sirens. Two cop cars with past chasing a RAV4, black with no plates, shots fired. He quickly walked without running to his car, turned on the engine and looked into his rearview mirror.
“This happens here every day” he muttered.
The coast was clear so he made a three-point turn and headed back south “shit” he thought “ do I have lipstick on my lips”
It was too late He had to get back home fast.
Rita was about to cook. She had prepared the crock pot since morning, the whole place smelled like carrots potatoes and corned beef. and he didn’t want to miss her dinner high.
Part 2
Rita needed to be taken out. She didn’t have a job and went to school part time for human computer interaction. HCI at DePaul University’s graduate school for computer science.
Luckily her man John B took care of everything for her.
They met in Texas when he was working a case for the outfit there. What he did didn’t concern her. He was a bit shifty and muffled his words when he described what he did. But he showed up to the movies wearing that long black chicago trenchcoat and a ruffled collared shirt, and she fell for him swooning.
She had to get out from under her aunt sally, who took her gambling at the casino, a three hour stuffy car ride northeast from the small south Texas town where she thought she could put down roots
But she fell for John B, his grizzled beard, dark mysterious eyes, and direct, forceful stern demeanor.
When the chance came to follow him to a new job in Virginia, she kissed her aunt sally goodbye, jumped in her beat up blue Honda accord she nick named blue thunder, and drove across seven states, singing love songs on the radio to move in with her new man.
Rita grew up in small town Ohio, right where all the train tracks cross splitting the town in two, the up and coming wide porches of Victorian mansions and howty towty pretensions of the north side and the dive bars and pit bulls barking fixed to chain link leashes nailed into overgrown yards protecting small modest homes on the south side of the tracks.
One day when john B came over to meet her mom and get drunk on goldschlimer with her grandad, he fell asleep on the couch. Louise, her half sister, had just got a puppy, and in the morning she leaped up on the couch and started licking his face and his ears.
That’s when she knew she was in love, she sighed.
But now, back in Chicago, it was cold and she was all alone. John B was always busy with his work and different cases, as he called them.
She needed to feel loved again, to feel special.
Rita picked up her phone and called Julia, her friend from when she worked at a home for troubled youth with special needs.
“Hey girl!”
“Heyy”
What are you doing? What’s new?
“Well I moved back to Texas from Missouri” Julia drawled.
“Abram and I are on the rocks again.”
No way, what happened?
Well he wants to be a dj and a rapper and start his own label he is always investing everything he has into his DJ equipment and club promotion business.
Wow that’s quite a passion project
I sometimes loan him money, you know just so my man can follow his dreams
Girl.
“But he’s always out late performing and networking. And lately I can’t help but wondering if he’s seeing that slut Marisa again.”
“No!”
“Yeah the other day we had the best sex ever. I mean like ever he hits it so good girl”
Ohhhh
But anyway he got this text and his phone started ringing that ring tone again. Ohhhh. I felt like such a fool
You’re better than that man. You’ve always supported yourself you’re fly you’ve got no kids, you’re hot. You don’t need that no good in your life
Don’t talk that way about my Abram. I just need to be sweet to him, I’ll make him forget all about his ex Jolene.
Anyway. What’s new with you?
I’m still in Chicago, still with John B. But it’s always overcast and never sunny out. John is so busy now a days I only see him in the evening when he comes home for dinner before he has to go out again for work. You know girl…
Done anything fun?
Well the other day I went to the horseshoe casino. And you know I know my blackjack
Girl shut up. What!
Yeah I was there a few hands. And I just sat there with a scotch chain smoking marboro reds and playing blackjack. At one point I was up almost 700
Get out of here. What happened?
Well I was up, and I was on a streak, when this mysterious black man in a tuxedo came up and sat at the table and we started making small talk.
He led me to craps table and handed me a whiskey on the rocks startled my skirt with his big hands before I knew it I lost everything.
Girl I had to go
“ That’s wild” julia said. You gotta be careful with them man especially strange men and casinos.
“That’s the best kind, huh?”
Ooh yes baby I’m just on the phone with Rita. Julia sounded a bit distant. Rita I gotta go. My Abram wants me.
Catch you later girl.
Bye
Rita Sat there. Remembering her girls nights outs with Julia and Mona, they got all pretty, with the perfect skin tone mascara and four inch heals that were off by the end of the night walking barefoot with blisters in dirty cement sidewalks outside the club
She needed John B to take her out.
We went out in the fall, to the racetrack she mused.
John B drove her to maywood, and they parked the car and he opened the door to let her outside.
You could bet on horses and they served a steak green bean and mashed potatoes meal. You’d sit with a drink and watch your horse.
The good old boys are outside, smoking cigars, and drinking Michelob light. You could bet 1, 2 , 5 $20. Or more on a horse or a chariot and watch as it went around the track.
That was when John B spent more time with her. Rita confessed to herself something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was
He was always busy with work and didn’t seem to have time for him. Was he cheating on her or was she just imagining it because of her own wandering eyes.
She remember when he visited her at her mom’s place. he was distant and sullen, wandering around family functions with a scowl on his his face.
At her old job, she got close to a man named Cody. They would canvas the airports, doing direct marketing, like travel agents, in the end, they made some good money and traveled around the country. John B was doing some work in LA and she went out there to visit him, but Cody would text her all the time. She thought John was getting jealous.
She wasn’t working there anymore
In the spring if they were still together, and she was still at that apartment with the back lawn, she would plant squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and even a sunflower. Maybe she love to see life grow. Maybe her and John B could have a baby and they could put all the animosity and pain and suspicion and jealousy behind them.
Well, she was gonna try to get busy. It was a nice day and John will be home soon. She better get something to cook.