Free Slipping by Y. Blak Moore Page B

us for a few days.”
    “I know you ain't talking the way you be sucking up the yams. I didn't see you holding back none.”
    She was right, they had both grown piggish when it came to smoking crack.
    Juanita got up and tossed the television remote on thebed. She stretched and put her hands on her hips. “I'm 'bout to get up out of here.”
    “What?”
    “I'm 'bout to show at the crib,” she said innocently. “I ain't been home in a coupla weeks.”
    “Who you live with?” Don asked. “You never did tell me about yo crib and you never act like you got to go there.”
    “I live with my drunk-ass momma and my four brothers when they ass out of jail. They don't care if I come to that motherfucka or not. Plus me and my momma stay into it. Whenever she get drunk, which is all the time, first she want to be all happy. Next she get to doing all that crying and bringing up the old days. Then she get straight-up mean and start talking shit.”
    “Okay, well, why you fixing to go there then?”
    “I need to change clothes and see what's going on around the crib. I been cooped up in here for too long.”
    Don thought about it. He guessed that if he let her out of his sight she might not be coming back anytime soon. No crack was one thing, but no crack and no Juanita was unfathomable.
    “Bitch, you better sit yo ass down somewhere. You ain't been worried about changing clothes or going to the crib. Now all of a sudden when the rest of the yayo gone, then you ready to hit the crib. That's bullshit. I know what yo ass trying to do. You done smoked up all my rocks and now that we ain't got shit, you ready to be out. You got to be crazy than a motherfucka if you think that you leaving upout of here. I'll kick yo head in. If you leave up outta here it's gone be in a ambulance.”
    “Well, what you gone do?” Juanita said as she bounced onto the edge of the bed and folded her arms. “I want a bump.”
    “Shut the fuck up so I can tell you what I'm gone do. A nigga can't even think or get a word in edgewise with you talking shit. Now look, I need you to call one of them jiffy cabs.”
    “For what?”
    Don reared up and raised his hand. “I swear if I got to tell you to shut the fuck up again, I'm gone slap the shit outta you. Don't worry 'bout for what, bitch. Damn! You getting on my motherfucking nerves with all these questions. I said call a motherfucking jiffy cab. Now gone head. I gotta do something.”
    Don descended the stairs from his room to the second floor. He dipped into his mother's bedroom and began rambling through her dresser drawers. He found her old wedding ring, an antique brooch, and two gold chains. From the shelf in her closet he pilfered his mother's video camera. He fled his mother's room and pushed open his sister's bedroom door. From the top of her bookcase he took a 35-millimeter camera. He looked around for something else and found a thin gold chain on her dresser. He took everything downstairs and set it on the kitchen table. He slid into the living room and unhooked the VCR from the television. Back upstairs, he grabbed a pillowcase to stash the merch in.
    Outside a car honked.
    “That's the livery cab,” Juanita called out.
    “Come on, girl. You going with me.”
    “Where we going, Don?” she asked, eyeing the pillowcase.
    Don rolled his eyes. “Bitch, you just don't learn. Stop asking so many questions and start waiting for instructions.”
    She followed him outside the house to the cab. As they slid into the backseat, Don said, “A mellow, take us to 47th Street to the pawnshop. She gone wait with you while I'm the spot so you don't think I'm trying to get ghost on you for yo fare.”
    On 47th Street, Don went into the pawnshop on the corner of Prairie. About ten minutes later he returned without the pillowcase and hopped in the backseat.
    Juanita was excited. “How much they give you for that stuff, baby?”
    “Don't worry about that,” he said, but he was thinking,
not as much as I