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SHORT STORY: BRICK 🧱 LADY PT. 1

Verneisha was what my birth certificate said. By fifth grade the ‘Ver’ had been dropped and only ‘Neisha’ was acknowledged. High school came and Neisha had died too, I stepped into my true self and became ‘Nene’. Months after high school graduation I had no name, I had no family, and I had no money.

Let’s go to the beginning.

JULY 1989, Tampa FL

Hustlers will hustle. Each corner had at least three dealers, even with the Florida heat being it’s highest at 99 degrees Fahrenheit on a summer afternoon. There was one corner in the entire city where only one man stood. His hustle came easy unlike the others who moved in groups of pushers brazenly trying to catch sells. It was pitiful the way they begged fiends to cop from their bags.

“You want some rock, man?” A dealer asked, leaning in the car window of a man who belonged on Wall Street. “Buy mine. These the biggest rocks you’ll ever see in yo’ life man.” He held the pebble under the mans nose.

“Why is it yellow?” The fiend questioned.

There was no dealer in the world who would be cool with their work being downplayed, rather it had been truly stepped on or not; who the fuck did this crackhead think he was checking?

“Taste it,” the dealer demanded with a hardened face.

Another dealer from the same corner named T-Lo skipped up to the car window and boasted about his supply. “Try this then. I got that ring the alarm. Shit so good it’s gone have your ears ringing. Man it’s so good.”

The pale skinned man in his silver BMW coupe was becoming scared of the men at this point and wanted to ride off. He slowly begin to roll his window up when a flash of anger came into the first dealers eyes. He reached his hands through the window and popped the door open.

“Nah man’. You don’t come on this side and not buy nothing now I’m thinking you the police.” He grabbed the mans tie and threw him onto the hood of his own car. “You got a wire on pretty boy?” He gritted into his ear as he pinned him onto the burning hot car hood. Loud, heart piercing screams came from the buyers mouth as his face sizzled and melted. He tried to scream for help, he tried screaming that he wasn’t the police and didn’t work with the police but the dealer kept up with the punishment. After feeling like he was near death the dealer had finally released him and tossed him to the ground. Landing a hard kick to his ribs and then to his face. Leaving him rolling on the hard, lava hot, cemented paved road.

SKURRRRTTTTT

The sound of the silver BMW speeding off sent the fiend into a panic. While he was a fiend, he was just like many other fiends. Rich, successful, and married. How would he go home to his wife with burn marks on his face, possibly fractured ribs, cuts and scrapes from being thrown to the floor, and most importantly without his $100,000 car. Fighting tooth and nail, he got back to his feet as he struggled to breathe. The other dealers on the corner just looked at him stumbling away and down the street. He made it a good five blocks before he collapsed at the feet of some brown Penny loafers belonging to Vernon House. The 6 foot 2 man always dressed in the best, even standing here on the corner he looked fresh out of heaven. His white linen pants had the creases going down the middle of the leg, the matching button up was halfway open showing his large cross medallion dangling from his thick gold chain. A look of confusion spread across his face as he took a cautious step back from the passed out man. Only three people frequented this block and that was dealers, hookers, and fiends. He wasn’t a dealer or hooker so that left him as a fiend. He looked over his shoulders before putting two fingers to the mans neck to check for a pulse. Very strongly, the man still had a pulse. Vernon could’ve done what any other dealer would— kick this cracka off his corner. But he was a business man and knew building rapport with his junkies was money guaranteed. Without thinking twice he scooped the man up from the floor and drove him across town to his North Tampa home. His wife was there along with their three year old child. He knew bringing a junkie home would send his wife into flames but later down the line she would thank him. He was strategic man and always had a plan.

“Baby I need some help!” He called out to her as he bussed through the front door.

Her eyes grew twice the size the moment they landed on the white man being carried bridal style. In a flash she was hovering over him examining him as if he was an undefined object.

“Why in the world did you bring a dead body in here?!” She asked in a hush tone.

“He ain’t dead. Just fell out.” Vernon told her taking him to the couch. “Just get me some cold compresses and ice.” He started to take off the mans suit jacket and shirt.

A gasp escaped from the grown man mouth. He had never saw something like that. The side of the mans chest looked like his skin had sunken in. There was arrays of blue, purple, and black bruising with what he was sure was the mans rib bone sticking out. Whoever had gotten ahold of this man did a number on him.

After hours of nursing him to health. Edwin eyes finally cracked open, his throat extremely dry, and body in the worse pain one could imagine. His body went into survival mode and he tried to jump up from the sofa but it only made a burning sensation rip through his body.

“Woah. Woah. Take it easy my mans. You got yourself into some shit. You remember where you was at?” Vernon placed a friendly hand on his shoulder.

Edwin nodded back into consciousness and it all came rushing back to him. All he wanted to do was cop a 8 ball, but somehow got the ass whooping of his life and car jacked. He didn't know what he would say to his wife when he got home but he needed to start thinking and quick. 

“My wife is going to kill me.” is all he could muster up to stay. 

“We can see what we can do about that, you on the rocks? What was up on the AVE for you?” Vernon questioned. 

Edwins head dropped in embarrassment, since the crack epidemic started he was able to keep his nasty habit low-key but now he felt like his hands had been exposed. 

“I’m not here to judge you. Here try this shit... if you like it, you keep coming to me only and I’ll look out for you.” Vernon slid him a line and a rolled up dollar bill. Like a child takes to candy, Edwin snorted the crack up in a single second. Immediately he felt euphoria take over his essence. There's that feeling in his stomach that he loved so much, a soft mix of nausea and electric tingles. His head had begun to buzz and his heart rate increased as if he was running away like he wanted to.

From that moment on a friendship for life was formed. Whatever Vernon needed Edwin would get it and vice versa. Since the day Vernon never stood on another corner, he would have never imagined a junkie falling dead at his feet would make him the richest dope peddler in America. 

Copyright © 2021 by Jeniyah Tolbert  All Rights Reserved.