"Ah . . . yeah," I replied, unsure of how to respond.

"Girl, stop lying," she snapped suddenly. Her direct and firm tone startled me. She seemed to have forgotten about her bulging stomach and was now focusing on me and my nose. My eyes grew wide as I realized she may be a little more hip than I'd originally thought.

Play it cool, girl, I told myself. Act stupid. Just act stupid!

"What do you mean?" I asked as I fluttered my eyes and spoke in the most innocent, naive voice I could muster.

"Aw, girl, com' on. Everybody gets high off something. Why do you think we run our mouths a mile a minute around here and type like Flash Gordon? Me, myself, I like blow. It looks like you do too, though it looks like you got punked on your last batch."

I wasn't sure how to deal with her comments. My mind began to race.

Was it a set up by management? Trying to see if they could get me to confess that I did drugs so they could fire me? Or maybe it was a setup by Andrea on behalf of management? Hell, come to think of it, who the fuck was management? Andrea was the only "authority" person at the title company I'd ever met.

I decided I wouldn't admit to shit.

"I . . . I don't know what you're talking about," I said loud and slow as I looked around the bathroom for the hidden camera. "No, no drugs here. I'd NEVER do ANYTHING like that," I said even louder as I walked around checking under stalls, toilets, and sinks for a hidden microphone. I wanted to make sure "they" could hear me.

"Girl, relax," Sandra said as she began laughing. "This ain't no setup, okay? Nobody put me up to this. I've been snorting long enough to know a bad drip when I hear one."

I stood there silent. Eyes wide. Mind racing. What the fuck to do? What the fuck to do?

"Look, try some of this," she said, pulling a small brown glass bottle from her large watermelon breasts. I instantly knew what was in it. I sometimes used those little bottles myself. They were used for carrying blow or meth. When the lid was unscrewed, it had a tiny spoon attached to it by a short, thin silver chain-the chain was to prevent the spoon from getting misplaced. The spoon came in handy for snorters who had no fingernails with which to hold their blow.

Sandra unscrewed the lid, grabbed the thin chain, and dipped the spoon into the bottle. Making sure the spoon was overflowing with the shiny white substance, she held it up to the left side of her nose; and holding the right side closed with a finger, she snorted. As she inhaled, the white power vanished up her nose so fast that, if I had blinked, it would have seemed to magically disappear. There was no doubt in my mind-Sandra was a blow pro.

"Now that's some good shit!" she exclaimed, as she held back her head, reached up, and pinched her nose to keep any powder from spilling out. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the head rush. After a moment, she handed the bottle and tiny spoon to me.

"Here, you need some real stuff to keep you awake; not that fake-ass shit you got."

Now that she'd done some blow herself, I was feeling more comfortable about the whole situation not being a setup. Besides, the white stuff in the little brown bottle looked good. It smelled good. It was calling my name. I decided it was safe. I quickly snorted a heaping spoonful. She was right. It was good. I instantly felt the dope rushing to my brain as my ears began to ring and my eyes began to water.

"Damn, girl!" I yelled. Because my ears were still ringing, sounds were muffled, causing me to speak louder than I realized. She began laughing again.

"Yup," she said as she laughed at my reaction. "Told you you needed some real shit."

Sandra and I stayed in the bathroom and continued to "bond" for a while longer. We took a couple more toots as she hipped me to who on the shift did what. She said that Andrea smoked weed, but her main thing was pills-uppers mostly-beauties and yellow jackets. Tina liked to toot horse. Sandra said that during one of her and Tina's bathroom "bonding" sessions, Tina told her that as long as she didn't slam heroin, it wasn't addictive.

"Never mind the fact she spends every fucking dime on the shit," Sandra stated, obviously annoyed at Tina's misguided conceptions. "She's convinced herself that tooting it is harmless." Sandra shook her head in disgust as if the blow we were tooting weren't. I didn't understand Sandra's disgust, but I did understand Tina's reasoning. In fact, I agreed with it.

Sandra continued informing me on who did what. She said that she, herself, did anything that was free-a woman after my own heart. However, when spending her own money, she preferred blow.

She kept talking, but I began to ignore her and go into my own little head trip and enjoy my high. The main message I got from her chatter was that everyone on the third shift got high off something.

Finally, she shut her mouth for a moment. She sat on the sink, held her head back, and enjoyed her high.

"Girl, we'd better get back," I said a few minutes later. "We been in here-I mean, we've been in here for quite a while now."

Sandra's eyes flew open as she looked down at her watch and screamed, "Oh, shit. You're right. My break was up thirty minutes ago!"

We jumped up and began preparing to return to our stations: straightening our clothes (I don't know why tweakers do this. But for some reason, we always felt the need to straighten our clothes before reentering the world), and checking ourselves out in the mirror to make sure there was no white residue on our noses.

"Now, look . . . ," Sandra stated, checking out her ass in the mirror while running her hands over her large butt in an effort to smooth her skintight pants. Why she felt the need to smooth down the material I could never figure out. It was already stretched so tight there wasn't space for a wrinkle.

". . . this shit ain't any big secret. But look at it sort of like the elephant in the middle of the room."

"What the fuck does that mean?" I asked.

"What I'm saying is, although we all know we get high, we don't really talk about it. The only thing we talk about openly is drinking and partying at the clubs. Anything else, we just let each other be. Nobody asks questions and nobody gets sweated. Ya got it?"

I laughed to myself at Sandra's use of the word sweat. It was one of the slang words I'd taught the crew. To "sweat" someone meant to bother, question, pester, harass, etc. Now she was using it like an everyday word. They were learning slang almost as well as I was learning proper speech.

"Yeah, I got it," I slyly replied. And I did. In fact, I wholeheartedly agreed with their little philosophy: don't fuck with them about their using, and they wouldn't fuck with me about mine. Damn, I loved the working world.

So that's how it went. I went to work loaded on uppers, but never drunk. I knew if I got drunk, I'd show up and cuss everybody out. So I never went drunk-only loaded-though never loaded on basin'. I immediately realized that once I started basin' I couldn't stop till all the dope, or money-whichever ran out first-was gone. So I vowed to freebase only on the weekends. But I wasn't the only "responsible" one. Everyone else on the shift also pretty much shunned alcohol during work hours and only came high-or got high shortly after their arrival-everyone that is, except for Sandra who had no shame in taking a "couple sips" during lunch. Oftentimes, throughout the shift two or three of us would meet in the bathroom and "bond." Other times I went in and "bonded" by myself.

At first, my typing was horrible. Though it was fast, it was full of mistakes. But as time went on, Andrea was right: my speed and accuracy increased. Typing is the perfect activity to do when speeding because it requires fast, quick movements of the hands. Tweaking on the typewriter soon became one of my favorite things to do, which made the job even more enjoyable.

There were several unexpected benefits that came from working. First, just as Tommy had said, every payday provided a guaranteed high from at least one of my two favorite drugs: basin' or heroin. In between paydays, I did what I had to do to make a little money, which usually meant selling a little dope, shoplifting, driving the getaway car for a homie doing a burglary, or letting a homie stash hot goods at my place-for a fee, of course. These activities, together with the stash supplied by the numerous partiers who were always hanging at my house, was enough to provide a regular source of the less-expensive drugs: meth, pills, acid, dust, weed, and booze. Working also made me feel better about the illegal shit I was doing. I mean, hell, it wasn't like I was a thug or a bum. I had a job, dammit!

33.

EVERYTHING WAS GOING great at my job. Sometimes, I had to miss work because of hangovers or extreme fatigue (every now and then, staying up for days at a time would catch up with me). However, this didn't cause me to suffer any negative repercussions because the girls on the third shift had a secret arrangement. Every now and then, when someone couldn't make it to work or had to leave "sick," the others would sign her time card and cover for her. We all knew that sometimes partying got a little out of hand. So when it did, we covered for each other. This allowed the "sick" girl to miss work and recover without having to worry about using up sick leave or vacation. We didn't have to worry about Andrea finding out-she often took advantage of the arrangement herself. I loved my job.

Tommy and I continued to work different shifts, but we made the time we did have together count: we got high. To allow us even more time together, Tommy left his dumpy hotel room and moved into my dilapidated shack. Even though we were both working steadily, we were getting high steadily. As a result, we were two months behind in the rent. (When Kelly lived with me, I'd at least pay a portion of the rent. But I soon quit paying any of it.) The landlord, fed up with my never-ending excuses and lies as to why I didn't have his rent, started eviction proceedings. We needed a place to go, and fast.

One Saturday, as we sat around getting high, Nancy, one of our partiers, proudly announced that her Section 8 application had finally come through. She was ecstatic because what that meant was that the government was going to pay $300 of her $350 rent. Still, the girl had the nerve to complain about having to pay the other $50.

Tommy and I looked at each other. We didn't have to speak-we each knew what the other was thinking. It didn't take long to figure out how much get-high money we'd have if we only had to pay fifty dollars a month. I immediately told Nancy that we would be her roommates for fifty dollars a month.

"Hell, yeah!" she screamed, happy that she wouldn't have to pay any rent.

- Nancy moved into a small two-bedroom, one-bath apartment. Tommy and I lived in one of the bedrooms; Nancy and her three children lived in the other. The cramped living space didn't bother the adults. Tommy and I worked different shifts, so only two adults (one of us and Nancy) were home at the same time during the week. The children were all school age, so they were in school during the day when Tommy was at work, and in bed at night while I was at work. So the only time all six of us were home simultaneously was on the weekends, which is when we really partied-with at least ten other partiers. The adults were always too loaded to care, or notice, the tight living quarters.

If sharing a room with their mom, the constant presence of drugs and alcohol, or the regular parties bothered Nancy's children, they knew better than to say anything. Nancy ruled with an iron hand. She, like me, had no patience, no tolerance, and couldn't stand noise-not the greatest characteristics for a parent. So her children learned at an early age not to be seen or heard when their mom was partying. They were never physically abused, though. I wouldn't have stood for that. One thing I wouldn't tolerate was beating a kid. Spanking them was all right. (I'd gotten spanked many times by my mother. I'd been beaten many times by Diane. I knew the difference.) As far as I was concerned, drugs, alcohol, and partying around kids was okay-long as no one was beatin' 'em.

- One day, after a wild night of partying, I awoke to Nancy frying chicken. As the hideous smell streamed into my bedroom, my eyes flew wide open, I started sweating profusely, and my stomach started flipflopping like a fish out of water. I threw back the covers, jumped out of bed, and sprinted to the toilet, all the while placing my hand over my mouth in hopes it would keep the vomit down till I got there.

"What's the matter with you?" Tommy asked as he got up and followed me. "You got a hangover?"

"Yeah!" I screamed as I stuck my head into the toilet to allow the previous night's alcohol, food, and dope to gush out.

After two or three violent heaves, the gushing stopped. I plopped down on the floor and laid my head on the rim of the toilet. The cool porcelain felt good on my feverish skin, but the queasiness was returning. I had to get out of the house. I just couldn't stand the smell. I ran out the front door-panties and all.

"What the hell's the matter with her?" Nancy asked as I flew by with one hand over my mouth and the other over my stomach.

"She's sick," Tommy replied, opening the fridge and grabbing a beer.

"I done tol' her about mixing drinks," Nancy stated annoyingly as she wildly waved the fork she was using to turn the chicken. "Crazy heifer had rum, vodka, gin, beer, wine, and tequila! No wonder she sick!"

It was true. I had mixed quite a bit of liquor the night before. But I knew it wasn't the booze-at least not this time. I had some birth-control pills. But, as usual, I'd often forgotten to take them.

I stayed on the porch until Nancy finished cooking the chicken. I used the time to try to remember the last time I'd taken a pill. I wasn't sure if it'd been three, four, or five days. Hell, I didn't even know where they were!

Fuck it! I told myself. Even if you did know where they were, they ain't gon' do you no damn good now!

The rumbling in my stomach advising me of hunger interrupted my thoughts. I decided to ignore my "little problem" for the time being, I went inside and had some of Nancy's delicious fried chicken. (I could eat fried chicken, I just couldn't be around when it was being cooked.) Everyone was grubbing on fried chicken. The children were sitting in the living room, glued to the TV cartoons as they ate. The adults sat around the kitchen table, discussing the important topic of which partier had committed to bringing which party favors to that night's festivities. While I had been outside, Tommy said Victor had called and said he'd scored some bomb blow, which he'd be bringing over that night. I figured this was as good a time as any to make my announcement.

"I'm pregnant."

Tommy and Nancy grew instantly silent. The only noise audible was the sound of the Road Runner's "beep-beep." The children never turned from the television. I guess, to them, my proclamation wasn't as interesting as watching Road Runner beat the hell out of Wile E. Coyote.

"Pregnant?!" Tommy exclaimed. He had a look of sheer terror on his face-as if someone told him he'd be dead in forty-eight hours.

"Pregnant?!" Nancy repeated. The look on her face was one of surprise, not terror.

"What the fuck is the matter wit' y'all's ears!" I yelled. "Yes! Pregnant! You know, as in 'wit child'!" I was pissed. And when I got pissed, anything proper went out the window.

Again, the room fell silent.

Wile E. Coyote was laughing out loud as he realized he now had Road Runner where he wanted him.

"What you gon' do?" Nancy asked.

Tommy looked at me as if he were wondering the same thing.

I was waiting to hear the familiar splat! that always follows when Wile E. Coyote's traps for Road Runner backfire at the last moment.

"I'm gon' do what I always do. I'm gon' git rid of it."

"You mean like an abortion?" she asked.

"What the fuck else could I mean?" I snapped.

Boom! Splat! The kids cracked up laughing, confirming that Road Runner had, again, gotten the best of Wile E. Coyote.

"Girl, don't you know what that kid is worth?"

I looked at her in total confusion. "What the fuck are you talking about?" I had no idea what she meant.

"Girl, welfare! You can get money for that baby!"

Money? For a baby? I'd never thought about it that way.

"Girl, why you think I got all these kids? I get a fat check and Uncle Sam pays my rent! I get food stamps, free medical, and I don't have to move my fat ass!" She busted up laughing, obviously very proud of her fringe benefits.

"Chile," she continued while gnawing on a chicken leg, "you betta git with the game!" Because she had food in her mouth, as she finished her sentence, she spit fried chicken all over the place.

"Cup." Tommy had finally regrouped himself enough to speak. "It's not worth it. Think about it! By working you get more money in two weeks than a bitch on welfare gets in a month!"

"Who you callin' a bitch?" Nancy snapped.

Ignoring her, he continued, talking quickly as he laid out the facts. "Think about it. You are in no position to have children! You can't stand noise. Children cry all the time! You have no patience. Think about how other people's kids get on your nerves now! You barely feed yourself! How are you going to feed a child? Do you really want the responsibility of taking care of someone else all the time?"

Tommy was right. I hated cooking, cleaning, noise, and kids. Realizing that he was actually getting through and making me seriously consider his comments, he continued, talking even faster.

"You hate people in your business! You hate having to answer to others. If you keep that baby and go on welfare, Uncle Sam will own you. He will tell you what you can do and cannot do, where you can do it, and how long to do it! You can own only certain things, and you can't even have a bank account."

Shit, it's not like I ever have money in the fucking thing anyhow, I laughed to myself. It was true. Though I did have a bank account (I only got it because the check-cashing store charged too much to cash my paychecks), there was never any money in it.

Nevertheless, no money in the bank was the least of my problems. I had turned a few tricks here and there when money was low and my need for dope was high. I wasn't sure if the baby I was carrying was even Tommy's. Actually, I didn't know whose it was.

What if I kept it and it wasn't Tommy's?

While I was having this intermittent conversation with myself, Tommy went on with his argument.

"And Uncle Sam is nosy as hell. They get all in your business, asking thousands of questions-regularly."

I quickly raised my eyebrows and my eyes grew big at the mention of being questioned. I hated being questioned. I felt like the system had never asked any damn questions-or at least the right ones-when they were supposed to. When I was getting raped, molested, beaten, mistreated, shifted from home to home, no one ever said a fuckin' thing. No one ever asked me why I ran! They simply labeled me "hard to place" because I ran. And now the bastards wanted to ask questions?

Fuck that!

"Nigga," Nancy interjected, "you just don't want to have to take care of no babies! This ain't about Uncle Sam controlling her, or about her not wanting a baby. This is about YOU controlling her and not wanting a baby. Cup, don't listen to him." Her eyes seemed to be pleading with me. "He's got his own selfish motives. He's thinking of himself! Just like a nigga!" No longer pleading, her eyes now glowed with pure rage.

Regardless of his motives, Tommy had hit a nerve with me. No fuckin' body was gon' tell me what I could and could not do. I hated authority, especially the system, which to me, was on the same team with the government.

"Fuck welfare, Nancy. It ain't worth it. That little couple hundred dollars you get a month ain't worth it. The little bastard's gone next week."

The cool tone of my voice told Nancy I was serious. She dropped the subject.

Five days later, I went back to the same clinic I'd gone to before. If any of the nurses remembered me, they didn't show it. And if the nurse that prepped me was the same one I'd had previously, I was too high to know it. Besides, I didn't care who took the baby out as long as it got out.

- This time the abortion wreaked more havoc on my body. I cramped, ached, and bled for days. Unlike the previous abortions I'd had, I wasn't able to just jump up and party. I was ill and bedridden for five days, and I was forced to call in sick. On the fourth day that I called, Sandra told me that someone "high up" in the title company had been watching the third-shift crew. Everyone, including Andrea, was scared and nervous. She said that, as a result, our "arrangement" couldn't be used. I'd have to take all the days as sick leave. I was so sick I didn't care.

I wasn't too sick to get high, though. I just did it in bed. It made the cramps feel better-or least it made me not give a damn that I was cramping. It also made me not give a damn about what I'd done. But there was another reason why I was able to relieve any guilt. Years before in Lancaster, when Connie and the girls had beaten that baby out of me, I swore that that would be the last baby I'd ever keep-or love. Bringing up the anger and resentment of that baby being killed somehow allowed me to feel okay about killing this one-and the ones before it; and if need be, any others after it.

After about a week, I was back up and ready to go.

When I returned to work, though, things had changed drastically. Andrea had been fired. When I asked why, the girls mumbled that they'd been told something about her not being a "capable supervisor and manager."

"How can they say that?" I screamed when Sandra told me the news. "She was great!"

Before Sandra could reply, a tall white man entered the word-processing room. He was dressed in a very nice black suit. He looked like a mortician to me-dressed all in black, with a solemn face. The girls all jumped to attention and started frantically pecking at their keyboards, as if they were working. They were obviously scared. I wondered why.