"What's the matter? You act like you've never been to breakfast before!"

With a one-night stand, I hadn't. Disregarding my shock, he continued.

"Come on, girl. Get dressed. I'm hungry! I thought you weren't going to ever wake up!"

Shit, he was serious!

So I got dressed and we went to breakfast. The whole time, I was suspiciously watching him out of the corner of my eye, waiting for him to spring the real reason we were sitting in Bob's Big Boy ordering pancakes and bacon. I figured maybe he'd ask me to run some dope across the border, or maybe he was looking for a chick to boost for him. Whatever it was, I wasn't doing it. So I watched him, ate my breakfast, and waited. And waited. And waited.

Though he ran his mouth the entire time, he never asked for a thing. Instead, in his funny-sounding proper English, he told me all about his family. His parents were still married to each other. They, with his younger sister, lived in New York where he was born and raised. He had a full-time job at a warehouse, loading boxes and stuff. It'd been his fourth job in a year. I was impressed by his proper speech and by the fact that he worked, though I didn't let him know it. He ended his story by saying he'd been in California for only a few months.

"You thinking 'bout goin' back to New York anytime soon?" I flippantly asked. He was starting to get on my nerves. He was talking like we were going to be around each other for a while.

"No, I think I found something worth staying around for," he replied as he winked at me, lazily held back his head, and popped another piece of bacon into his mouth.

- Try as I might, I couldn't get rid of Tommy. I thought he'd get tired of my drinking. Instead, he drank with me. I thought he'd get tired of my drug use. Instead, he used with me. I thought he'd get tired of my partying. Instead, he partied with me. We soon became inseparable.

I fell in love with Tommy because he never tried to change me. He never teased me about the ghetto way I talked or the sexy way I dressed. He never complained about my short skirts and high heels. Most important, he never tried to stop me from doing any of the drugs I liked to do, and in fact, was always willing to try new ones. So I was not shocked when, a couple of weeks after we'd been going together, instead of using a straw to toot our coke, he took a little glass pipe out of a small black bag.

"How in the hell am I s'posed to toot with this?" I asked, turning the pipe over to examine it.

"Girl, ain't you never heard of basin'?" Whenever we did drugs or hung with partiers, Tommy used slang. I thought it was kind of cool how he could jump back and forth, at will, from "white" talk to slang.

But this time, I was too intrigued by the glass pipe and his question to notice he'd jumped into slang. I'd never heard of basin'. And I thought I'd heard of everything.

He said "freebasing" was a new way of doing coke.

He didn't have to tell me twice. I was always down for something new. So I watched him with great interest.

He said the bag held his "cooking kit." In it he kept the glass pipe, a cylinder-shaped glass vial that was about three inches in length, a small container of baking soda, cotton, a pair of pliers, a razor, a thin metal stick, a bottle of 151 proof rum, a copper scouring pad, and a lighter. He laid out the contents as if preparing for surgery. Then he began.

First he put some baking soda into the cylinder-shaped glass vial, took it to the kitchen, and added some water in it. Then he wound several pieces of cotton around the pair of pliers, dipped it into the rum, and lit it with the lighter. The cotton exploded into a small ball of fire. He said this was called a "torch." Then, holding the vial slightly at an angle, he began quickly waving the torch under it, gently twirling the vial in a circular motion, all the while never taking his eyes off the contents inside. Slowly the solution began to boil.

I watched in absolute awe because I'd never seen anything like it. He was intently staring at the vial as if it contained something priceless. Small beads of sweat began to appear on his forehead and his breathing started to come in short, quick breaths-almost like he was panting.

"What are you doing?" I asked in a whisper, afraid noise would destroy his scientific undertaking.

"Cooking it," he replied, also in a whisper. His eyes had grown to the size of large marbles as he continued to wave the torch under the glass vial.

A few minutes later, he blew out the torch. Then, using the thin metal stick (which I later learned was actually a piece of a wire hanger), he reached into the vial and began slowly twirling it around and around. The small amount of white substance inside began to stick to the wire. It reminded me of a cotton-candy machine at the annual county fair. The vendor would stick a white paper cone into the center of the machine, and as the machine twirled, the cotton candy would slowly wrap itself around the cone.

Cotton candy. Fairs. Girl, this ain't no time to be daydreaming, I grumbled to myself as I brought my mind back to the mission at hand.

When Tommy did bring the metal stick out of the vial, a clump of moist white stuff clung to it. It again took me back to my younger days and the milky white paste we used during elementary-school arts-and-crafts sessions. When we were supposed to be making papier-mche heads, mine ended up looking like a white, sticky deformed fiasco. I hated arts and crafts.

Stay focused, girl, I scolded myself. Somethin' important's goin' on here.

Tommy continued with his task. He moved so cautiously, as though he were handling something extremely fragile. He took the wire with the glob of white paste still clinging to it and placed it on my coke mirror-a mirror I kept for coke only, which was no good if it got wet because coke was no good wet. So seeing him place the moist glob on it immediately irritated me. I let out a quick gasp.

Ignoring my irritation, he began to gently blow on the white glob, which began to harden immediately. Within seconds, it had hardened into a shiny white rock about the size of a large marble. I was amazed.

Then he cut a small piece off of the copper scouring pad and placed it into the bowl of the glass pipe.

How much fuckin' preparation does this shit take? He'd been "preparing" for almost fifteen minutes-hell, I was ready to get high!

Still taking his time, and still moving cautiously, he used the razor to cut a small piece of rock off of the bigger one. He put the small rock into the pipe, redipped the torch into the rum, lit it, and began waving it under the pipe.

For the first time since he'd started cooking, he looked up at me. "This," he said, continuing to wave the torch back and forth under the pipe, "is pure cocaine, baby. Pure coke." (I later learned that the purpose of cooking is to clean out all impurities.) Just as the rock began to melt, he put the pipe up to his lips and took a long, slow hit. As he inhaled, small clouds of white smoke began to twirl around inside the glass pipe. I marveled at how pretty the swirling smoke looked.

Once his lungs could take in no more, he took the pipe from his mouth, closed his eyes and held the smoke for what seemed like forever. I understood this concept. It was like smoking weed. The longer you held in the smoke, the higher you got. But I'd never seen anyone hold smoke in that long.

Finally, he exhaled-slowly. As he did so, a long stream of white smoke flowed out of his mouth. His eyes turned glassy as his mouth flipped up into a wide grin. One look at the pure euphoria reflected on his face and I knew I needed some of that shit.

"Come on," I said, still irritated at having to wait so long, "let me try."

"Okay, but let me show you how to do it," he said.

"Nigga, you ain't got to show me shit! I been using for years. Just give me the shit!"

"Fine, Ms. Know-It-All," he snapped. "Learn the hard way."

And the hard way I did. The first time I hit it, I did it all wrong. I didn't wait for the coke to melt. I wasn't holding the torch right so it couldn't melt. So the first time I hit the pipe, I felt nothing.

"This shit is bunk!" I yelled. "Ain't you got some plain ol' coke?"

"You didn't do it right!" he yelled, jumping to his feet and protectively snatching the pipe out of my hands as if it were a priceless object. "And you're wasting it! I told you. You have to let me teach you. Now stop being so fucking hardheaded and listen!"

Determined to do it right, I did listen, and listened well.

That night, I learned how to hold the pipe and the torch so the rock melts correctly. I learned how to inhale slowly. I learned to hold my breath twice as long as I ever had smoking weed. And I learned not to swallow the smoke (swallowing gives you the runs). When I finally did do it right, it was the best feeling I'd ever had in my life. Better than booze or regular coke. Better than meth, sherm, heroin, or uppers. The physical sensation I got from freebasin' is difficult to explain. But let me put it to you like this: think of the happiest, most joyful, blissful moment in your life. Now multiply that feeling by a hundred. That's the ecstasy of basin'. It was simply the most exhilarating and pleasurable sensation I'd ever had. And I didn't want to lose it. I never again reached the same level of ecstasy that the first blast had given me. But I spent the entire night trying.

At first, I always had to wait on Tommy because I didn't know how to cook. This triggered some intense arguments between us because he moved so fucking slowly. So I began to watch him cook very closely and soon learned how to do it myself. Within weeks of taking my first blast, I had my own little cooking kit; though I was never as good at cooking as he was. Once I took that first blast, though, I wouldn't care who cooked it, as long as it got cooked.

31.

TOMMY AND I were hitting the pipe every opportunity we got. I became obsessed with trying to recapture the golden euphoria of that first hit. We spent every dime we had, and sat there for days on end trying to get back to that place of absolute bliss. It immediately became the most expensive drug I'd ever done.

Tommy began to fuss that I was doing too much smoking of dope and not enough buying of it. Although I was hustling here and there-robbing, boosting, conducting "business arrangements" that Tommy didn't know about-it didn't produce enough money, and the money I was able to make wasn't steady. He wanted me to get a job. He broke down all the reasons why: First, he said it would mean that every payday would provide a guaranteed high.

So far, I liked the plan.

Second, he said that although freebasing could be very addictive, it was completely acceptable and harmless if I had a job. He also said that working was the way to go because no one would notice the drug use if I had a job.

I thought about this for a moment. This wasn't the first time I'd heard this theory. I knew several drug users who weren't considered dope fiends because they got up and went to work every day. In fact, most of our "real" dope-fiend buddies didn't consider those who had jobs to be real fiends. Maybe Tommy was onto something.

I brought my mind back to the present conversation as Tommy continued with his list of the benefits of working. Finally, he suggested that getting a job would help me with part of my problem.

I didn't ask him what my problem was. Nor did I question his reasoning. Hell, it made sense to me.

"But what kind of job can I get?" I asked.

"I don't know," he replied. He took a hit off the pipe, lay back, and closed his eyes. After a moment, his eyes opened and he sat straight up as he announced he'd thought of a plan. "Didn't you say you went to college? I'm sure you can do something with that. Anyway, you need to start looking. You can't be sittin' around all day doing nothing."

I took the pipe, dropped a rock on it, and took a long hit. I closed my eyes as I held my breath and enjoyed my high. "Okay," I huffed as I exhaled the smoke, "I'll get a job."

Besides, I told myself, Daddy and Jr. are starting to get on my nerves fussing all the time. Always saying I need to "do something" with my life. Maybe if I got a job, they'd get off my back.

"But first, you gotta work on your speech," Tommy announced.

"What the fuck you mean?" I snapped. Whatever he was hinting at, I decided I didn't like it.

"You gotta quit using slang," he replied.

"Slang? What's wrong with slang?" Everybody I knew spoke slang.

"They don't use it in the working world. White folks are scared of blacks that use slang. So you're gonna have to learn to enunciate your words."

"Enuncee-who? What the fuck did you call me?" I assumed my warrior stand: feet shoulder width apart, head cocked to the side, fists balled up ready to pounce.

"I'm not calling you anything, Cup. It's not a name, it's a thing." He was again speaking in that "you fuckin' idiot" tone of voice. "It means you have to pronounce your words, say the entire word instead of cutting it off at the end."

The confused look on my face told him I still didn't understand.

"Okay, check this out. You say 'ain't'; white folks say 'aren't.' You say 'dat,' they say 'that'. You say 'fittin' to,' they say 'getting ready to.' You say 'puttin', they say 'putting'-"

"Okay, okay," I snapped. I didn't need any more of his fuckin' examples. I got the picture. I knew what he meant; I just didn't know how I was going to do it. I mean, I'd been talking that way since I could talk. How was I supposed to completely and suddenly change something I'd been doing all my life?

He realized what the puzzled look on my face meant.

"You're going to have to practice."

"Practice?" I asked. I'd never practiced anything in my life.

"Yes, practice. I want you to stand in front of a mirror twice a day, fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen at night and have a conversation with yourself. Look at yourself and practice saying 'isn't,' 'that,' and 'putting' Also, you cuss too much. You need to practice talking without cussing. Pretend you're talking to someone white at an all-white tea party. Practice speaking to them-pronouncing the entire words, the proper words."

That's it? That's what's going to change my speech-thirty minutes a day? He was truly trippin'!

"Nigga," I replied, "I been speaking this way all my life. And I like cussing! Cussing makes the sentence sound better. It gives true meanings to the words. Besides, if you think thirty minutes a day is gon' turn me 'round, this coke is better than I thought, cuz it's got you trippin' so you done lost yo' crazy-ass mind!"

He didn't say anything for a moment. He just stood looking at me and softly giggling. Then, cautiously, with extreme sensitivity, he explained the other part of his plan.

"No. Thirty minutes a day is only the beginning; it's not all you'll have to do. Next, you'll need an incentive to stop cussing and start speaking properly. So this is what else we'll do."

Who the fuck is we? I asked myself irritably.

He continued. "We'll tell all our party friends what you're trying to do."

"What the fuck good is that gon' do?" I snapped. "Them bastards never speak right! Besides, all they'll do is laugh at me."

"You know how much you hate being hit, right?" Well, every time someone around here hears you cuss or say anything slang, they'll punch you. The one catch is, you can't hit back. No matter how hard or how often they hit you. You follow my plan and I guarantee that after three or four weeks and extremely sore arms, legs, and other body parts, you'll start to pay closer attention to what you say and how you say it."

I thought about what he said for a moment. Tommy hardly ever cussed. And he did speak properly most of the time, though every now and then, mostly when he was high, a slang word would slip out. But his "properness" is one of the things I liked about him. And he did have a job; though he never had one for long. Still, he kept one.

His plan, as crazy as it is, just might work! Besides, the way he's always finding jobs, this little plan must've worked for him.

Tommy's next comment interrupted my thinking: "Next, you need a resume."

"What the fuck am I gon' put on a resume?"

He punched me in the arm. Hard.

"Ow, you son of a bitch!" I screamed as I drew back my right fist to knock the shit out of him.

"Uh, uh, uh!" he chimed, waving his forefinger back and forth in my face as if scolding a child. "Remember, you can't hit back!"

"What?" I yelled, still pissed and baffled about why I'd gotten hit.

"You were supposed to say 'What am I supposed to put on a resume?' Not 'What the fuck am I gon' put on a resume?' Now is as good a time as any to stop cussing and start speaking properly."

Proper, my ass! I thought, rubbing my arm, which had begun to pulsate with pain. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all!

But I didn't want to get hit again, so I reasked my question.

"What am I supposed to put on a fuc-I mean, on a resume?"

"Make it up!" he yelled, as if it should have been obvious. "They never check that shit."

And make it up I did. Sharon, a fellow partier, gave me a resume book she'd stolen while she was robbing a house. Why she'd taken the resume book, I have no idea; nor did I ask. Personally, I didn't care why she'd taken it; I was just glad she had.

Using the examples in the book, I handwrote a resume. For the section "Previous Work Experience," I listed the alarm company, though I used a fake address and phone number, and said that I'd worked there for three years, instead of less than four months. I also listed that I was a college graduate, typed sixty-five words per minute, and took shorthand at seventy words per minute.

I hope they don't test my ass!

It'd been awhile since I'd typed or taken shorthand. I could type sort of fast, but my speed was nowhere near sixty-five words per minute, and the text would be full of mistakes. And though I was sure I could take shorthand at a fast pace, I wasn't very good at being able to read what I wrote. And if you couldn't read it back, shorthand was no good.

Nevertheless, I was proud of the resume I'd created. I looked good on paper. I showed it to Tommy.

"When you gon' type it?" he asked.

"Nigga, I used my best fuckin' print!" I snapped.

He balled up his fist in preparation to punch me. Before he could deliver it, I recognized my slip and corrected my statement.