Dollar had yet to figure out that heroin claimed the lives of the rich and the poor, the guilty and the innocent, the educated and the ignorant. His children weren’t exempt from that.
As Mimi pulled closer to the action, she felt a wave of nausea. She knew the exact cause of her unsettled stomach. Whatever she was feeling was due to her lack of heroin, she was dope sick. She couldn’t stay in the bed all day, unable to move, fighting her physical cravings for the drug. Kicking her habit was a scary proposition, one she wasn’t ready to make.
It was the dawn of another day, yet it didn’t change her reality. She was an addict. Mimi wished she could wake up from this nightmare of addiction, but she couldn’t. Going cold turkey for her wasn’t an option. There was no way she was going to put herself through that kind of sickness again. She was going to get herself some dope, some way, somehow.
The only thing she knew for sure was she needed her daily blast of heroin and she needed it fast. But with no money to purchase her drug of choice, her only option was to exchange a sexual favor for the drug.
Despite her dope habit, Mimi knew she was still attractive to drug dealers. She kept her appearance up, somewhat, enough to the point that dope boys still made unwanted sexual advances toward her. She was light skin complexioned, long black hair, average height, shapely, a soft beautiful face with straight white teeth. To everyone that just met her, she was a dime. But those that knew her, she had seen better days.
“C’mere, yo,” she said, rolling down her car window calling over a kid she knew. “Let me holla at you.”
Hope this lil muthafucka horny, she thought.
“What’s up yo?” the kid answered.
“You remember me?” she asked, smiling seductively as she replayed a sexual act she performed on him.
“How could I forget you, yo,” he shot back, mentally recalling the same incident. “As hard as you go.”
Mimi’s sexual exploits were practically legendary amongst the younger boys around there. If they knew she was out here they would literally be lining up to get a crack at her. If Mimi were your average dick sucker, he would have given her the cold shoulder and let someone else fall victim to her charms. However, as it stood, she was above average. So he openly flirted with her and entertained her.
“So what’s up? You tryin’ to go or what,” she demanded to know.
“Hell yeah, yo,” he said excitedly.
“You got some place for us to go? Or we gone do it in the car,” Mimi inquired.
The kid commented, “I gotta place we can go. Park ya car, yo.”
“Same deal as last time right?” she reminded him.
“Yeah, I got you, yo. You know I don’t even play those type of games,” he replied. “Don’t I always take care of you?”
“Yeah, you do,” she admitted. “You one of the realest ones out here.”
“Ain’t nuttin’ changed,” he bragged.
A few minutes of work for Mimi quickly turned into a few days of being held captive by her own drug habit, in a drug house, bartering her body for drugs. The neighborhood boys ran in and out the house for days. For some of them, it would be their first sexual experience. She was blinded to the faces of the males she serviced. Some were young, some were old, some were handsome and some were ugly. Some paid her with dope, and some gamed her and got a sexual favor for free. The one thing that was consistent was the high potency of heroin in her system.
When Mimi binged on drugs for days, like she was doing now, she retreated to some dark, remote space within herself and was totally uninterested in everything around her, her son, her mother or her friends. All she wanted, all that she needed, was inside a bag or a pill of heroin.
In this state she turned into a savage, doing whatever to whomever to feed that unquenchable thirst.
“We got this whore upstairs. Her head is the truth, yo,” Stink confessed to Black.
“Fuck is you tellin’ me that for, yo? I could care less about these raggedy ass bitches around here,” Black cursed.
“Stop bein’ so serious yo, just come take a look at the broad. You ain’t gotta fuck her. Just come look,” Stink pleaded.
“What’s so special about this broad? You seen one hoe you seen them all,” Black maintained.
“You’ll see,” his little brother promised him. “Now c’mon, yo!”
Black relented, following his younger brother upstairs to a dark, decrepit area of the row house. Stink opened the door of a nearby bedroom, stepping to the side so Black could get a full view.
“Bitch, arch ya back,” one boy commanded Mimi, who was in the middle of a threesome. The other boy laid back enjoying the fellatio that he was receiving. They all appeared to be oblivious to both Stink and Black’s presence.
“You know who that is yo?” Stink whispered.
“I don’t know that whore,” Black answered.
“Look closer,” Stink suggested. “That’s Netta’s buddy Mimi, yo.”
Damn, sure if it ain’t, Black thought after taking a second look.
Seeing the sideshow that Mimi was engaged in wasn’t sexually arousing. Still, Black didn’t know why, but it made him feel good. Mimi was the missing link, she was his clue to Netta’s whereabouts. He had looked in the newspapers and on the news and there was no mention about what he did to her. But now it should be easy to find out exactly where she was.
Black could not stop staring at Mimi. It was the first time he had seen her in five years. He looked
