Dope Sick Read Online Free Page B

here and go crosstown and cop a burger andsome fries if I want. If I want, I can smile all the way like I’m crazy or ask people for spare change or just stand on the corner and watch the world go by. You can’t do none of that without maybe getting gunned down, so why you still up in my face running game?”
    â€œSo what you want to know?”
    â€œLike I said before”—Kelly’s head turned a little, but I still didn’t see his full face—“Rico was tasting Dusty’s stuff, but you wasn’t using nothing?”
    â€œI don’t hit the line, but sometimes I skin-pop,” I said. “Just a little under the skin when I’m down. I used to party all the time, but I know…”
    â€œYou know what you know, right?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou scared of hitting the line?” Kelly asked.
    â€œI heard a lot of bad things happening when dudes be shooting dope right in their veins,” I said. “Infections. You get some bad dope and put it right in your vein—you can be dead before you know it. I’m a little scared of needles anyway. I figured I wouldn’t get hep C or AIDS or nothingif I just skin-popped.”
    â€œYou got to work hard to be that ignorant, but if you going to dope it up, you might as well be ignorant, because it’s all going the same way,” Kelly said.
    â€œYou don’t know that.”
    â€œI know you got to lie about even using,” Kelly said.
    â€œI use, but I’m not really into a trick bag,” I said. “You know what I mean?”
    â€œSo, tell me what happened with the cop.”
    I sat down on the armrest of a stuffed chair. It smelled a little pissy, but I didn’t care. I was really getting tired. “Me and Rico got the stuff together and wrapped it in that plastic Baggie you put food in when it got to go in the freezer,” I said. “We put a little tape around it, so in case the white boy got nervous, he wouldn’t want to take the time to unwrap it. Maybe he would just want to give up the cash and return to wherever he came from.
    â€œRico was down from his nod and was grinning and bopping the way he do when he’s high. I wasmellow, but I was okay. You know, I wasn’t nervous or anything. That’s the way dope does me. I still got the same things going on in my head, but it’s like I don’t care that much anymore. We got down where we was supposed to meet the guy with the cash—he was supposed to be wearing a jacket and a green-and-yellow sweater that said FUTBOL . I spot the dude and Rico goes over to him and says something while I hold on to the drugs. Then we go into the building.
    â€œI’m checking the dude out and he’s jumpy, like he’s anxious to get the stuff. I figure him to be a dude using big-time and needing to get right. I check his hands, and he’s got tracks on the back of his left hand—you know, maybe he’s right-handed and running out of road—and he’s been hitting the veins there too hard. But I was getting nervous, too. I’m sensing the set ain’t correct.”
    â€œYour high wearing off?” Kelly asked.
    â€œNo, the white boy is getting me nervous,” I said. “He’s all jumpy and everything, but he’s chubby, too. You know, if he’s that heavy intohorse, running up to Harlem to buy it from strangers, how he spending so much money on food he staying chubby?
    â€œI looked the guy right in the eye and said, ‘Rico, this fool ain’t right.’ Meanwhile, Rico got the money and the guy was scoping the dope and trying to pull out a bag from a hole he punched in the plastic with his finger. He looked up at me and then at Rico, and Rico pulled his piece, put it upside the guy’s neck, and told him not to move. Rico felt around his waist and didn’t feel no piece and said he was all right. But I knew if he was a cop he might have his piece