Baby Huey: A Cautionary Tale of Addiction by James Henderson Read Free Book Online

portable DVD/CD player.
    “You ready to go?” I asked him, and he said, “Shaun got one of these,” and held it up for me to see. “I sure wish I could get me one.”
    Looking at the price, four Hamiltons and change, I thought Keep wishing . Watching him sigh as he put it back, staring at it the way he stared at a Dorito before devouring it, I said, “What the hell, get it.”
    In the check-out line the cashier handed my debit card back and said, loud enough for the people outside to hear, “It’s been declined!”
    Usually when this happened I feigned indignant astonishment, but this time I smiled and whipped out my checkbook. After comparing the signature on my license to the one on the check, the cashier summoned a manager over.
    Once white people think you’re broke you can’t convince them otherwise.
    The manager looked at me, then back at the license. “Sir, is this your current address?” Yes, I told him. “A work number?” I told him and he wrote it on the check and gave the cashier an apprehensive nod. One more question and I would’ve told them to hell with it.
    The walk home Lewis grabbed my hand, something he’d never done before. It sort of felt funny walking down the street holding a chubby kid’s hand. He talked nonstop all the way, telling me he wanted to be a truck driver when he grew up, drive to Alaska and feed polar bears.
    “Lewis, you’d make a good truck driver and I think you’d be a natural feeding bears.”
    He liked that, squeezed my hand harder.
    Vida met us at the door. Her six-year-old daughter, Sheena, sat in the loveseat. Doreen’s twin brother, Oscar, and his wife and three kids were there, too. Vida hugged me and said congratulations.
    Oscar’s wife, a skinny, nervous woman wearing a yellow sundress, smiled my way, but Oscar gave me that look, the same look he gave me at the wedding, a look saying he didn’t think I was good enough for his sister.
    His wife and kids dressed like refugees, Oscar, a former college linebacker, wore designer shorts and jersey, and expensive tennis shoes. Why is he here? I wondered, shaking his hand, which swallowed mine.
    Doreen sat on a barstool, a bottle of Boone’s Farm wine and a half filled glass behind her on the minibar. “John, tell Vida you got the job without a resume. Tell her, she don’t believe it.”
    Who cares? “Yes,” I said, glimpsing Vida’s large breast exposed in some type of black wrap with feathers, “I did. Filled out the application and got the job. That’s it.”
    Vida said, “That’s quite a leap, John, going from mill worker to banker. I’m glad for you.”
    Going from five-dollar hoe to free-for-all slut was quite a leap too, I thought, but said, “Thanks, Vida.”
    Doreen told Lewis to come here, took the DVD/CD player from him and frowned at it. “Where did you get this?”
    Looking guilty, Lewis said, “John bought it for me.”
    She frowned at me and told Lewis to put it up in her room, she had to think about letting him keep it, and take the other kids to his room.
    “Play nice and don’t keep up a lot of noise,” she said as they all filed out of the room.
    Then she, Vida and Oscar’s wife--could never remember her name--moved to the glass dining table in the kitchen and played biz whiz.
    Once again I was alone with a nut in the living room, this one, though, naturally nutty. Oscar rested his big feet on the coffee table and laughed at all the jokes on a Sanford and Son rerun.
    Stealing a glance at him thowing his head back laughing as Fred feigned a heart attack, I figured one of God’s mysterious works: Doreen sharing a womb with this water-head, big-nosed, snaggle-toothed buffoon.
    Hearing the kids playing loudly in Lewis’ room, I knew what would happen next. One of them would bump his or her head, get knocked down, or get his or her feelings hurt, and run crying to mama, who would get angry because so-and-so wasn’t watching her bad-ass kid and go home.
    It never failed.
    Waiting