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

wouldn’t be too pleased.
    When she took me in her mouth I sat up and pulled her to me. “Uh-uh,” I said, and heard her sigh.
    Slurring slightly she said, “Let me love you, baby. Please.” The scent of wine rode her breath hard. “I don’t understand why you don’t want me?”
    “I want you--you know that.”
    “Let me do what I want to do,” she said, and tried to kissed me. That wasn’t happening; I turned my head. “What? You won’t kiss me now?”
    “Doreen, you’ve been drinking.”
    “I had two glasses--Vida drank most of it. Give me a kiss.”
    I kissed her on the cheek and said, “There you go,” and hugged her tight.
    Bobby Womack was singing If You Think You’re Lonely Now . I heard Doreen sniffle, followed by a wetness on my shoulder where she was resting her head.
    Damn! All my fault now. Still she could’ve cried her heart out, I wasn’t kissing her. Wherever she’d studied the art of fellatio she should’ve finished the course, learned what you were not to do afterward. No kissing. None whatsoever.
    Doreen got up and I watched her get a blanket out of the bedroom closet and walk out, leaving the door open. I heard her gargling in the bathroom. Why didn’t she think of that a few minutes ago? Moments later I heard the television in the living room.
    Eminem was rapping on the radio now, dissing his mother, telling the world he wouldn’t let her see her grandbaby. What the hell did she do to him?
    Yeah, just like I thought, it’s going to be a long night.

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6

    The molding machine made a different noise when one board rolled through it than when boards ran continuously. Berry, closeted in his office, could distinguish the difference better than anyone. Usually the second time he heard a single board rolling out of one of the two molding machines he’d come out and speak to the man feeding it.
    Daydreaming, this was my fourth time letting a board roll alone, despite trying to jam the next one in to catch up. Out came Berry, his eyes wide and angry behind thick bifocals, wearing his customary red-white-and-blue flannel shirt, jeans and black steel-toe workboots. In one hand he had a sheet of paper. I saw it was the handwritten two-weeks notice I’d given him earlier.
    Tuna fish on his breath, he said, “Thinking ’bout your next job, Jim?” Any name that started with J--John, Jerry, James, Johnny, Jesus--Berry reduced to Jim . Not expecting an answer he said, “You think you can screw the duck here till you start your new job? Not on my watch, buddy.”
    Saying buddy like a curse word.
    “Go relieve Ali on the ripsaw,” Berry said. “I doubt he’s dreaming of his next job.”
    No doubt, Ali was work release; he was happy to do anything except prison work.
    I stood in the entranceway to the ripsaw room watching Tucker feed one twelve-inch-wide board after the other into the ripsaw as Ali grabbed the planks that slid out the other end on a waist-high table and assorted them midair into one of three wheeled buggies, and thought to tell Berry to kiss my ass.
    Upcoming rent squelched that decision.
    Ali, sweating profusely in prison-issue light-gray shirt and dark-gray slacks, patted me on the back and handed me his gloves. Once he’d lifted up his boot, showed me the V-cut in the heel, told me that was for tracking escapees.
    Tucker, almost seven-foot tall, three hundred pounds plus, midnight-black with the pinkest lips I’ve ever seen on a black man, waited for me to give the ready signal. He was smiling. I’d never seen him smile before. Tucker didn’t like anyone who wasn’t work release, and now he had what he called a free-world fool at the other end of the ripsaw.
    I knew what would happen the second I waved him to start.
    The molding machines ran a ten-foot two-by-four through in about fifteen seconds; the ripsaw ran a ten-foot twelve-inch-wide board through in a fraction of that time, faster than you