Ciarra had shot cocaine several times that day before picking Aston up from school. All day, as always, she had been trying to chase the feeling she’d got from the first injection. Not able to get it from a reputable source, she had bought it from a stranger out of desperation and had only realized, when stirring it with water didn’t make it go clear, that it was cut with something else. She shot it anyway.
Once, Ciarra had been afraid of needles. The first time she shot up instead of smoked it, she had to have someone else do it for her while she looked away. Now she was addicted to watching the blood draw back in the needle. It was the rush of knowing that once she saw it, she was guaranteed to get that amazing feeling that would wash every last scrap of her pain away.
The second it hit her bloodstream, the taste of ether took over her mouth. The sound in her ears changed to a ringing and throbbing. Her heart started pounding like a piston, pumping a wave of energy through her being. For once, she felt like she could do anything and go anywhere. She felt like she had been lifted out of the prison of life and instead was on top of the world. But the sound in her ears scared her. She had been told that the sound in her ears was what you heard right before you were about to OD. Being unfamiliar with the blow she had procured, she had overestimated her tolerance. Ciarra was afraid that if she sat down, she would die, so she didn’t. She spent hours running around and doing things until she was sure the risk had passed. But now, in the low of the comedown, those hours had caught up to her and she felt even worse than usual.
Aria watched Ciarra stumble toward the van as if fighting a vapor of exhaustion trying to suck the life from her veins. It was obvious that she was high. The shackles of the futility in her life, which the cocaine had freed her from, had been put back on and were heavier. Ciarra didn’t care to live anymore. She couldn’t care about anything. She felt like giving up. All she could do in a state like this was sleep.
DeShawn jogged to catch up to Ciarra, slamming the driver’s side door that she had just opened, preventing her from getting inside it. She spun around to face him with her back against the side of the car. “You get the fuck back on the track,” he yelled, pointing a finger so close to her face it grazed her nose.
In an attempt to defend her, Aston tried to get between their legs and push DeShawn away from her. “Don’t hurt my mommy!” he yelled. DeShawn immediately punched the side of Aston’s head, knocking him to the ground.
Aria watched him turn his attention back to Ciarra, preventing her from getting between himself and Aston. The boy struggled to get back up off of the ground. When he did, again he tried to get back in between them. DeShawn yelled something Aria couldn’t hear at Aston and proceeded to beat him.
“No, stop it! Oh my God, stop it! OK, I’ll go back out. Oh my God, stop!” Ciarra screamed at the top of her lungs, too afraid of him to take a step forward to physically stop him.
DeShawn backed off of Aston, who was lying motionless in the dust. By this point both Anthony and Robert were watching the scene from within their tents, like frightened rabbits peeking out at a predator from their burrows.
Ciarra ran up to DeShawn, desperate to make amends. She looked for him to cosset her. Her body language indicated compliance. “OK, where’s the date? I’ll go right now. Just as soon as I get him in the car,” she said.
“A’ight. That’s my girl. You go out to the cathouse now by the kiddy stroll. You see what you can pick up. But that little trick you pulled is gonna cost ya. I ain’t losin’ no revenue.”
Ciarra nodded in agreement, knowing she would have to work to pay off the money he would have made if she had shown up to whatever “date” she had been expected to service.
Satisfied, he put his arm around her neck and planted a kiss on her forehead. Aria watched him walk over and kneel down next to Aston, who was dazed to the point of not being able to get up. DeShawn pulled Aston to his feet and brushed the dust off of his pants and shirt, stabilizing the boy’s drunken sway, which had been initiated by his dizziness. “You love your momma, don’tcha? Yeah, you’re a good boy, ain’tcha. But your momma gotta work. If you let her work, one day I might teach ya to be like me. You’d like that, wouldn’t ya? You’ll be good with the ladies, yeah, I can tell you gonna be good with the ladies.”
He handed Aston’s hand over to Ciarra, who pulled the boy tight against her legs. “I’ll take you back out on the track,” he said as a final order, not bothering to wait for a reply. Mother and son stood motionless against the van, watching DeShawn walk back toward his customized black Lincoln Navigator.
Ciarra got them both in the car and rushed, despite her stupor, to clean the blood off of Aston’s face with a wet wipe. Though she heard nothing, Aria could see him crying through the windshield as she did it. Then Ciarra stripped down to her push-up bra in the front seat, changing her clothes as fast as she could to put on something sexier. When she got out of the van, she grabbed Aston and put him on her hip. The heels she was wearing wobbled when she walked across the uneven
