Oh, NOW the mothafucka opens!

Jets of pain, corresponding to each metal bar, shot through my face. Ignoring the pain, I dashed through the open gate and bolted down the street. Tommy started to run after me, but he was high too and his coordination was off. Instead of running through the open gate, he lost his balance and he fell face-first through it. I turned just in time to see his forehead smash into the ground.

"That's what you get, mothafucka!" I yelled. Wanting to enjoy his pain but unable to waste precious time, I turned and began to run with all my might.

"Ughhhhhhh," I heard him moan in frustration and pain. He didn't stay down long. He got up and continued after me.

Tommy was fast, but not fast enough. He lost me as I jumped into the backyard of a neighboring house. Determined to give me an ass-whuppin', he started roaming through the neighborhood, screaming my name at the top of his lungs. From the faraway sound of his voice, I knew he wasn't close. So I doubled back to our apartment, ran up the stairs, bolted through the door, and dialed 911. (Funny how the tables turned. There was a time when I hated the police. I hated them in my house and in my business. But the violence in my marriage had escalated to such a degree that I'd begun calling them, begging them, to come to my house and get in my business!) "Nine-one-one emergency," a female operator said casually.

"This is Cupcake Brown." Huff, huff. I was so out of breath I was having trouble talking. "Send the police!" Huff, huff. "My husband's trying to kill me!"

Using the same casual voice, the operator began asking a bunch of questions like "Is there a gun in the house?"; "Does he have any weapons on him?" I didn't have time to answer a bunch of fucking questions. But I needed help, so I tried to answer them quickly, all the while watching the door, afraid that Tommy would come busting through at any moment.

"No. No." Finally, she'd worked my last nerve. "Just git me some fuckin' help!" I yelled and slammed down the phone. My face was killing me. I reached up to feel my nose, which felt broken. It wasn't. Luckily, when Tommy smashed my face into the gate, my nose went in between the bars. If it had hit a bar head-on, it would surely have broken my nose.

At that moment, Daddy came out of his room. My relationship with Daddy had long since changed. We didn't talk the way we used to. And although he lived with us, he rarely came out of his room when Tommy and I were home. At the time I thought he didn't come out because he usually had some ho in there with him. But years later he told me he stayed in his room because he didn't want to see us fight or he didn't want to see us getting high. And we were always doing one or the other.

For a few seconds, he just stood staring at me with a shocked expression, not saying a word. He later described to me what he saw at that moment. My chest was heaving up and down because I was out of breath. Each strand of my uncombed, tousled, jagged hair danced wildly in the air. My eyes had grown to the size of large marbles because of the crack, and I was sweating profusely. I hadn't bathed in two days, so I smelled funky. That funk, mixed with the tons of sweat leaking from every pore, caused an awful smell to emanate from my body. The look in Daddy's eyes changed from shock to disgust.

"Punkin'," he said, "I'm sick of this shit! All y'all do is get high and fight! Get high and fight! Can't you two see what that shit is doing to your lives?"

How could he preach at a time like this? I was shocked at his notion that the situation was somehow caused by drugs.

"Daddy, how could you say such a thing! This has nothing to do with crack! Any idiot can see that this is all because of Tommy's insane jealousies and psychotic possessiveness!"

"Well, I don't give a damn if y'all kill each other!" He coolly turned and went back to his room. Right before slamming his door, he hollered, "You'd better put that shit away fo the cops git here!"

I looked on the table and yelped at the small white rocks that were lying openly on the mirror. I didn't have time to trip with Daddy anymore. First, I had to stash the dope (in case the cops did come), and then I had to figure out an escape. I grabbed the mirror and cupping the several white rocks so they wouldn't spill, quickly slipped them oh-so-carefully into a kitchen cabinet. I turned my focus back to escape and began to consider my choices. Since our two-bedroom apartment was located on the second floor, there were only two ways out: the front door and a balcony off the master bedroom. I knew the front door was out, since Tommy would be charging through it any moment.

Could I jump off a second-floor balcony? I asked myself, sprinting toward our bedroom.

Sure you can! the crack I'd been smoking all night replied. You know how to jump don'tcha? Just jump!

Hell, it made sense to me. Besides, the second floor wasn't that high! It wasn't like jumping from a high-rise. . . .

On my way to the bedroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. My cheek was starting to bruise from its date with the gate. My lip had a small cut in it from which a trickle of blood ran down into my mouth. And though my nose wasn't broken, it hurt like hell. I reached up with my tongue and quickly licked the blood away. Ignoring the ghastly sight in the mirror, I ran through our bedroom and straight to the sliding glass doors that led out to the balcony. The cool night air felt good on my skin and especially cool on my lip, from which I could feel blood dripping again. I was trying to figure out where I should land when I heard a voice from the living room.

"Hello? San Diego Police. Is anyone home?"

Oh, good. I'm safe!

I ran into the living room to be met by two cops-one white and one Mexican. The Mexican was in the lead and had his gun drawn. Upon seeing me, he put it away. They knew I wasn't dangerous. Our house was on their regular beat, so they'd been there before because of our fighting. Actually, they knew Tommy and me by first names.

"Cupcake, you guys at it again?" the white one asked. Any other time, I'd have gotten smart. But this time I needed them.

"That mothafucka's crazy!" I screamed. That scream seemed to wake up my facial muscles that hadn't realized they'd hit the gate. Because my whole face started killing me.

The Mexican spoke this time. "Okay, Cupcake, where is he?"

I told them I didn't know. That Tommy had taken off running. I pointed in the direction he'd run. After asking me if I wanted to press charges, they called a backup unit to help them look for him.

I was instructed not to move until they returned. And, I didn't-except for periodic trips to the bathroom to sneak hits and wipe my lip.

- By the time the cops returned, I'd lost track of time. So I have no idea how long they were gone. Nor did I care because I was feeling pretty good, I had only one concern.

"Did y'all get that mothafucka?!"

Don't get me wrong. I really didn't care whether they got him or not. All I cared about was that they kept him away long enough for me to finish the dope I had left in the bathroom and the rock I had hidden in my shoe.

They had him, all right-in the hospital. Once they left the house, several cops began scanning the neighborhood looking for Tommy. They spotted him heading back toward the house. Upon seeing them, Tommy took off running. The cops took off after him. In an attempt to lose them (as I'd lost him), he jumped a fence. Problem was, it was one of those metal fences where the top of each pole ends in the shape of an arrowhead. Believing he could get high enough to clear the sharp points, he jumped. Unfortunately, he misjudged his landing and grazed an arrowhead, which punctured one of his lungs.

The cops told me which hospital he'd been taken to and gave me a number to call if I had any questions. I didn't.

I didn't go to the hospital that night and never gave Tommy a second thought. I stayed home and finished off the crack in the bathroom and in my shoe.

- The next day I did go to the hospital to see Tommy. Not to see how he was doing, but to get some money. What little money we had was in his pocket when he hopped the fence. I was out of dope and needed that cash. We never discussed the fight that night. It was as if it never happened. The only topic of discussion was getting high-which is why Tommy refused to give me any money-he wanted me to wait until he was out so that we could get high together.

The problem with that was, he wasn't scheduled to be released for at least another week.

"Nigga, I ain't waitin' for you!" I yelled, horrified at the thought. There was no way I could wait a week! A day was pushing it. But a week? Never. I angrily informed him that if he didn't give me some money, I'd sell everything in the house. He didn't believe me. I left cussin'.

A few hours later Tommy called home and Daddy answered the phone. This is the conversation as Daddy later relayed it to me: "Pops," Tommy said, "is Cup there?" Daddy told him he hadn't seen me since the fight the night before.

"Well, she told me that if I didn't give her any money she was going to sell the microwave."

"Aw, she wouldn't do that," Daddy replied. "She was probably just blowing off steam."

"Well, do me a favor. Go check and see if it's there."

Daddy put down the phone. A few seconds later, Daddy hollered, "Aw, shit!"

He returned to the phone and said, "Yup, it's gone."

"What about the stereo?"

Daddy went and checked the entertainment center, which was completely empty.

"Yup, it's gone. So is the TV and VCR."

They talked for a little longer, but not about our drug use or our violent fights; Daddy knew broaching such subjects would be a losing battle. Instead, they engaged in small talk about Tommy's health and when he'd be coming home.

Later that day, when I returned home with a pocket full of dope I'd gotten in exchange for the electronics and the microwave, Daddy told me about his conversation with Tommy. My reaction was blase. I felt no guilt about selling that stuff: not about the fact that it wasn't even ours (it was rented), nor about the fact that I smoked up all the dope bought with it by myself. Actually, I blamed Tommy. My thinking was that, if he had given me the money I demanded, I could have gotten high with that. Then we could've sold that stuff together-at another time when money was low. So see, it wasn't my fault that I did what I did. It was Tommy's. That was my thinking about all of the problems in my fucked-up life. They were somebody else's fault. It was always somebody else's fault. Always.

42.

I WAS USING more and more, drinking more and more, and working less and less. Ken was beginning to complain about my absenteeism, which had increased drastically: using bereavement leave, I was killing off relatives left and right; I was sick with some ailment several times a month; and I was late every day. When I was there, I wasn't worth a shit. I was either hungover, exhausted from days without sleep, or so buzzed on speed I didn't know (or care) which day it was. Though clients still loved me, my work quality and quantity plummeted. I was making a lot of mistakes: Failing to file court documents, failing to send out mail on time, misfiling and misplacing documents. Luckily, nothing too major was ever done that couldn't be corrected. Ken, who didn't micromanage, was unaware of most of these fuckups. He still assumed I was a great secretary and that everything was being done correctly and on time. I didn't want to shatter his assumptions.

Keeping unfinished assignments from Ken was another story. One day, his son, Robert, provided me with a solution. Robert was the cutest little three-year-old I'd ever seen. He had big brown eyes, and short curly, curly brown hair. Robert wasn't tall enough to be seen over the ledges of the secretarial cubicles that lined the firm's hallways. But you didn't have to see Robert to know he was in the office. You could hear him as he went stomping by. Robert loved to run, and he ran everywhere he went. Whenever Ken brought him into the office, Robert would endlessly run up and down the hallways. But it wasn't just his looks that made him cute. Being only three and still learning to talk, he couldn't yet pronounce his "r's" properly. So when asked his name, he'd look up with those big brown eyes, give you a wide grin with a few missing teeth, and say "Wabert Wose!" It was cute and funny as hell. I loved hearing him say it and just couldn't get enough of it. So we'd spend all day with me saying, "What's your name?" And him replying, and with a big grin, "Wabert Wose!" I'd bust up laughing, which made him laugh.

One day Robert was running laps around the floor at top speed. On one of his laps, he stopped at my desk because my in-box caught his attention.

"What's this?" he asked, looking up at me with those big, beautiful brown eyes.

"That's my in-box," I replied. "That's where your daddy puts work he wants me to do."

"Can I play with it?" he asked.

I thought about this for a moment. Whatever Robert played with, Robert lost, tore up, or destroyed.

"Sure you can, baby!" I exclaimed as I almost threw the stack of work at him. Robert snatched it and took off around the corner. When he returned a little while later, he was throwing shreds of paper in the air shouting, "Popcorn! It's popcorn!" I had no idea what he meant. Nor did I care. What I did care about was that he'd gotten rid of my work. Of course, when Ken discovered what had happened, he was livid. But, shit, he couldn't get mad at me. It was his son! That incident took my and Robert's relationship to a whole new and wonderful level. Whenever he came into the office, I persuaded him to play with my in-box because, by his doing so, he got rid of assignments Ken had given me that I hadn't yet done; as opposed to letting him play with my out-box, which contained work I'd already completed. Ken was always pissed when this happened because he was the one who was forced to redo the work. He'd angrily admonish me not to let Robert play with my in-box. Of course, I played dumb and acted like I was unaware that Robert was anywhere near the damn thing. As Ken stomped off to his office to try to re-create the work Robert had destroyed, I'd sit smugly at my desk, tickled pink because I had more time to hide or fix all my other mistakes.

I was starting to feel the physical effects of using. Oh, they'd been fuckin' up my body for years. I was just starting to feel them. Like one day, I began sweating cocaine! No, I'm serious. I was at my desk trying to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Ken was standing behind me, looking through some file cabinets for something. All of a sudden, I started sweating profusely. Now, I was used to sweating (it was a side effect of speed), but this time I could actually smell cocaine in my sweat. It had that unique smell that crack has when the torch hits it and it begins to melt. Petrified, I looked around to see if Ken smelled it too. If he did, he didn't let on. He continued rummaging through the files, muttering about what bad shape they were in and how it was my responsibility to keep them up. I began sweating even more as my heart rate increased from the panic.

What should I do? I asked myself. I'd never encountered this situation before. My mind began racing with questions.

Will I start sweating bourbon or Long Island Iced Teas? What about acid or dust?

My fear turned to silent laughter at the thought. Then my laughter turned to innovation as I began to wonder if there was a way I could somehow save the "coke sweat" and smoke it later.

Other physical things were happening to me. The days without eating and sleeping were starting to take a toll on my body. Popping speed during the day was no longer helping. One day I was so tired, I told the receptionist that I was going to spend my lunch hour napping in one of the empty offices. To prevent me from oversleeping, I asked her to wake me. I went into an empty office and passed out, spread-eagle, on the floor. When the receptionist tried to wake me, she was unable to. She shook me, yelled in my ear, pinched me, and even pulled my clothes and hair, but it was useless. I was dead to the world. Unfortunately, her dumb ass thought I was really dead and dialed 911. I awoke to find two paramedics walking around me, taking vitals.

"What's hap'nin'?" I sleepily asked. I was startled by their presence and scared on seeing several secretaries huddled in the doorway, staring at me with terrified looks on their faces. I later learned that while waiting for the paramedics, they too, as a group, had tried to awaken me, to no avail.

"What's the problem?" I asked again. I felt fine, except I was still dog-tired. I felt like I could sleep for days.

Ignoring me, the medics continued with their checks. Though they couldn't find anything wrong, they insisted I take a trip to the hospital. I refused to go with them right then, but promised to take myself in my own car. And I did. At the hospital, numerous tests were run. The only thing they could find was that I was hypoglycemic, which was explained to me as low blood sugar. The doctors accounted for my inability to waken with the explanation that blood-sugar levels could drop so low as to cause a person to become sort of comatose. They figured that's what had occurred to me. Personally, I didn't care what had happened. All I needed was a medical reason for it to take back to work, since I knew I couldn't tell them the truth-that I'd passed out because I hadn't slept in over two days from smoking crack at night and popping uppers during the day. "Hypogl-whatever" sounded medical enough for me. So when I returned to work three days later (of course I milked the medical condition to the fullest) it was the excuse I gave and the excuse the firm bought, without question.

My excessive absenteeism continued causing problems. Rhonda, the office manager I'd interviewed with, left the firm. Her replacement was a tall white woman named Dorothy, who liked to rule with a strict hand. Dorothy believed in following the rules. Since I constantly broke all of the rules, she didn't like me and often complained to Ken about my attendance, attire, and attitude; she was furious that I was able to get away with so much. Ken tried to stand up for me, but it wasn't long before he too got fed up with my behavior. He put me on probation twice. Each time, I cleaned up my act for a while. But, as usual, I returned to my old ways.

- My using caused me to be out all times of the night. On one such occasion, I was out copping a ten-dollar rock at around three-thirty in the morning. As I turned the corner from the dope spot, I was pulled over by the police. A short, stocky black cop walked up to my window and requested my driver's license and registration. He informed me that he'd pulled me over because I'd failed to yield the right-of-way. But I knew it was because he saw me leaving the dope street. As he turned to head back to his car, I noticed the name on his badge. A small gold cross was pinned next to his badge. The cross made me wonder if he was the cop known on the streets as "Preacher." Personally, I'd never met him before, but knew a few users who had dealt with him. He had a reputation as being nice-the type who said, "Watch your head," as he put you into the back of the squad car so you wouldn't bang it on the roof of the car (most cops were known to bang your head on purpose), or he would loosen handcuffs if someone complained that they were too tight (other cops were known to make them even tighter if you complained). He was also known as a righteous cop, a fair cop. I was hoping he was in a "righteous" and "fair" mood that night.

After confirming that I had a valid license and that my registration was current, he asked me if I wanted to "take a little ride." Now, although I'd never been beat up by cops myself, I had plenty of homies and knew many young black and Mexican boys who had. Their stories and experiences told me that when cops say that, they mean they're gon' take you somewhere and beat yo' ass. Thinking that's what this cop meant, I got scared and started sweating, stuttering, and shaking uncontrollably in my seat. My high was gone instantly. The cop must have recognized my fear. In an attempt to calm me down, he immediately promised that he wasn't going to hurt me, that he just wanted to "talk business." That calmed me, all right, because I knew what that meant.

Why not? I asked myself. I could use another "business partner." Especially since the two I had hadn't been around much lately, and both had failed to come to my rescue one night when I was almost arrested for drunk driving.

He instructed me to follow him. And I did for about a mile or so, when he pulled over.

What the fuck we doin' here? I asked myself. There was nothing around but a gas station and a bus stop with an old beat-up bench.

He got out of his car and told me to get out of mine. He walked over and sat on the bus-stop bench. As I got out and followed him, two thoughts went through my mind. The first was that it was pathetic that Tommy probably wasn't even worried about where I was. He couldn't be too worried, since he was always quick to send me out to dope spots at three and four in the morning to cop. Besides, as long as he had residue to smoke, he'd be fine. He wouldn't start to miss me till he was completely out and started Jonesing. My second thought was, We gon' do it at the bus stop? Usually, a cop wanted to be somewhere secluded or isolated.

"Come and sit down," he beckoned me. I obeyed. All of a sudden memories of Mr. Bassinet and "cheerleading practice" entered my mind. It had been years since I'd thought of him or those horrible days. But, for some reason, they popped up. I felt the hair on the back of my neck rise.

I sat next to him, leaving a foot or so between us. He didn't ask me to move closer, and he didn't move or speak for almost ten minutes. He just sat there with his eyes closed, his head tilted back.

Maybe he wants me to make the first move, I told myself. Hell, maybe he's crazy. Maybe he gon' kill yo' ass right here at this bus stop.

Shut up! I screamed to myself. I had to shut my mind up because it was starting to freak me out.

I sat quietly and tried to keep my mind quiet.

Finally, he spoke.

"You know you don't belong out here." His voice was quiet and calm, like he was talking to an old, dear friend.

"Now don't get me wrong," he continued. "Nobody belongs out here. But some people . . . well, they need to be here. They don't want anything better for themselves. They're too far gone. They don't want to come back."

Come back from where? I wondered. I started to ask, but the earnest look on his face told me I should probably hold all questions for the moment.

"They rarely make it out. They don't even want out."

Out of where? His ambiguity was starting to work my nerves. On top of that, I remembered that I had a ten-dollar rock in my sock. All of a sudden, his speech became very boring-and too damn lengthy.

Because his eyes were still closed and his face still pointed toward the sky, I knew he was unaware of my impatience. Without opening his eyes, he jabbed me in the chest with his finger as he continued, "But you, you really don't belong here. There's something special about you. I can't put my finger on it, but I know that God's got a job for you."

Aw, shit. Here we go with this "God" shit.

"Now, I don't know you or anything about you."

You got THAT shit right!

"But, God has told me that you've been through hell."

What the fuck God doin' tellin' you my business. And while He was "tellin'," why didn't He tell you that I hate people in my business!

"Yeah, you've been through a lot, all right. More than you should have for someone your age. Hell, for any age. But there's a reason you've gone through what you have. Don't you see? Everybody isn't strong enough to overcome that kind of stuff. But you are. You've survived!" For the first time since sitting on the bench, he moved. His eyes flew open, and like a shot he slid over to me and grabbed me by my arms. He began shaking me as if to make me understand. His fingers wound tightly around my arms. His eyes had an intensely crazy stare. All of a sudden, a tear began to roll down his right check. That's when I realized he actually looked, well, serious.

Okay, he's definitely nuts. Just play along. Nod at the appropriate times and hope you get the fuck out of here alive.

"Uh-huh," I said, all the while slowly wriggling my body in an effort to try to ease the pressure his fingers were putting on my arms. If he noticed my movement, he didn't let on. He didn't ease his grip. And he didn't let go.

"Listen to me!" He was now talking through clenched teeth. "You of all people don't belong here! You've got to get out! You've got to do what you were put here to do!" He was so intense.

"Okay, I will," I answered softly.

"But it will get worse before it gets better. And you will go down. Fast. Very fast. But don't worry. It's all part of the plan." He paused for a moment, giving me more time to think.

What fucking plan? I wanted to scream at him. There IS no fucking plan! As usual, the mention of God had pissed me off and got my mind to going.

"Yup, you will go down. You will go underneath the bottom. So far beneath that it will seem there's no way up."

Was this supposed to be a pep talk?