Red Bull

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

"I need some money..."

Its Saturday morning and I'm at the House. Grandmama cared about two things. Family and the Marchioness. When it belonged to her she'd have hundreds of people from the neighborhood at the old Marchioness singing and dancing to music played by local artists. "Her extended family"... that's what she called Club Marchioness and the broken poor souls that came there to forget their problems.

At Club Marchioness it didn't matter your religion, your sexuality, your culture or any of the other things that separate us from one another.

When you came to the club you might as well be here. Right in her house and on her porch like I was now.

Detective Westinghouse just came back not too long ago. They were closing the case into the death of Isabella as an accident. It sucks that I'm not even surprised.

Jamison lived here for the most part, but this was the same house that my grandmother passed down to my dad. It's the same house that we grew up in. It's the same goddam house that Isabella was killed in. The porch still has my grandmother's swing on it.

"I need some money...."

When you hear those words it's no doubt that Jamila is around. It's a down day at that. Her hair is disheveled and her eyes a beet red color matching the run-down t-shirt barely clinging to her skinny sculpture.

She's lost weight from what I can see but another thing I know about my little sister is that her weight fluctuates more than other people's moods

"I don't got no money for you, chicken," I tell her, "I live off the money from the club. Same as you. Money starting to slow down. I feel it too."

I called her chicken often. I did it because growing up Jamila was scared of her everything. Not much has changed but now she's found a way to cope with those fears. That way just so happens to be drugs. The shortage had come from all the drama going on in the family. When you aren't in your business making sure it was running smoothly someone else would be. In our case that would be our good for nothing cousins. It's no wonder we were all starting to feel tight when it came to our daily situations.

"That's all you say. You never help me."

"I always help you chicken but you getting so little there won't be much left for you to help."

"You calling me skinny?"

"I'm saying what I see..."

"I don't got an appetite. You know I don't have an appetite without my medicine," she whimpers almost not skipping a beat at how weird it is to call cocaine her medicine, before continuing in a desperate way, "Just let me hold an eight ball."

"Didn't you have a connect?"

"Meek?" she asks, "He stopped selling to me. Said something about respect for you or some bullshit."

For those not familiar with drug lingo in the streets, an eight ball is 3.5 grams. For someone like Jamila, this was nothing more than a starter kit in cocaine. I'd see her spend thousands on drugs like it was nothing. You knew she was really up to when she disappeared. No one ever knew where she went but was always gone.

I pick up my phone ready to make a call for her. I was ready to hook her up but then I see a car roll-up. The car is Meek.

Seeing Meek...just seeing him makes me think about how she said he denied her. And here he was. I guess it's right what they say: Speak of the devil and he shall appear.