Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction Read Online Free Page A

spaghetti and scorched Texas toast on our plates. Lewis couldn’t wait, his fat cheeks already swollen with spaghetti.
    “Thank You for this food, Lord,” I said. And give our stomachs the constitution to digest it.
    “Is that the best you can do?” Doreen said.
    Lewis slid his empty plate toward Doreen. “More, please.”
    Doreen took his plate to the stove and piled enough spaghetti on it to feed the Jolly Green Giant.
    Making loud sucking and slurping noises, his head lowered a few inches above the plate, Lewis wolfed down the spaghetti as though he was in a race.
    I shook my head and Doreen said, “Lewis…Lewis!”
    He looked up, spaghetti sauce all over his mouth, his shirt. “Huh?”
    “Slow down, baby,” Doreen said. “There’s plenty of food.”
    Lewis nodded and went back to stuffing his face.
    “Honey,” Doreen said, “how’d it go at the bank?”
    “I went there, the woman told me to go to the employment office, put in an application there. I did. If they call, they call. They don’t, no big deal.”
    “They’ll call,” Doreen said. “I feel it. I sorta told my students about it. You don’t mind do you?”
    Lewis drank a cup of Kool-Aid in one gulp and then burped.
    “Doreen, how do you sorta tell someone? I don’t get the job, you’ll look foolish.”
    Lewis said, “Thanks, mama. That was delicious.”
    Doreen told him thanks and to go wash up. When he left she said, “Last night, at church, I felt the Holy Spirit. I thought you did, too.”
    “You fainted, I didn’t. You mighta hit your head.”
    “Don’t joke about this, please. God is going to allow good things to happen to us. Honey, you start drinking and acting up again…it will not happen. A new job, a house, those blessings are ours if you don’t mess it up.”
    That spoiled what little appetite I had. Instead of feeling angry, I felt sad for Doreen. While I compared my life to third world inhabitants who got excited over a bowl of grits, Doreen compared hers to celebrities showcasing their mansions and expensive cars on Cribs. Bank job or no, I couldn’t see us affording that lifestyle.
    “Put three hundred dollars in the bank today,” Doreen said. “That put our balance over thirteen thousand.” Then she started talking about Lewis: his dislike of staying over to his grandmother’s after school; her brother, Oscar, Lewis’ uncle, teasing him about his weight; one of his cousins who took his toys and broke them--petty stuff. Nothing about his paternity or the fact that when he ate it sounded like a hog at a slop trough.
    She said something about a house with Lewis upstairs and she and I downstairs. That got my attention. Living the good life: living with Lewis without actually seeing him. Too good to be true, a fantasy; Doreen would still bring him to our bed when he overloaded his stomach.
    I watched Doreen clear the table and put the dishes in the sink. From behind, her hair tapered near the neckline, long legs slightly bowlegged, she could have been mistaken for a man. Yet she was all woman, graceful, delicate, gentle; taking her time washing each dish. She turned and caught me staring at her.
    “What?”
    I shook my head. That was the first word she’d spoken to me. What? At a house party--can’t remember where--embolden by three fingers of Bacardi Rum, I touched her on the shoulder and tried to shout over Roger Troutman’s Computer Love blaring from two speakers on the wall.
    “You wanna dance?”
    “What?” she said, loud and clear for everyone to hear, as if I’d asked for a suppository. Quick, I got out of her face, moved onto a heavyset woman standing near the buffet table eating meatballs with a toothpick.
    She said yes and carried her plate onto the dance floor, made the same hog noises that Lewis made as we slow danced, and apologized each time the plate touched the back of my head.
    An hour later, over another plate of meatballs, she asked if I would take her home, way out in the East End.