The Addict

by Lisa Lennox

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

When a privileged young woman finds herself on the other side of the tracks and addicted to crack, she will have to turn to an unlikely source to save her.

Lisa Lennox's debut novel transports us to the heart of the crack era: The South Bronx, New York, 1989. In the late 80s and early 90s, the crack epidemic swept through inner city communities like the plague. Mothers abandoned their children and took to the street for a hit. Fathers sold everything they owned to get a taste. The crackhead was a permanent fixture in many communities. Some neighborhoods were never the same.
 
Enter Laci Johnson, a privileged, smart, beautiful teenage girl from across town, who teams up with The South Bronx Bitches, an infamous girl group known for chasing men and money. When the SBB becomes envious of Laci, they devise a plan to destroy her life. Finding love in the most unexpected of places, Laci turns to a local drug dealer to help save her and heal the wounds of her new addiction.
 

Release date: August 22, 2023

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

“So, talk to me, Laci. We have a lot to discuss,” Laci’s mother, Margaret, said as she sat down Indian-style near the foot of Laci’s bed. She looked more like one of Laci’s peers than she did her mother.

Laci had always been closer to her mother than she had to her father. And it wasn’t because her father wasn’t a good one. It was because he was away from home more often than not. He was frequently out of town on work-related business and put in long hours at work when he was in town. But it was for the sole purpose of providing a better life for his wife and daughter. It was a life that Laci and Margaret never took for granted; therefore, there were no complaints from their end.

“What do you mean, a lot?” Laci said as she fumbled through articles of clothing in her oversize walk-in closet. She was in the process of throwing out old summer clothes that she hadn’t worn in a while or that were worn out. She had to make room for the new ones she planned on purchasing during their annual mother-daughter shopping spree. The summer of 1989 was right around the corner, and she would need a new wardrobe to set things off.

“Just what I said. A lot,” Margaret said, smiling. “I want to know everything.”

“Everything like what?” Laci asked, intentionally stalling.

“Like whether you’ve chosen where you want to go on the trip your father plans to send you on as a graduation gift. Like if you have a boyfriend. ”

“I knew there was something specific you were fishing for,” Laci said as she flung a handful of clothes out of her closet and onto the bedroom floor.

“Well, you’re only the most beautiful seventeen-year-old girl in the world,” her mother said, gazing at Laci with genuine pride in her eyes.

Julacia, or Laci, as she was called, was indeed very attractive. She was small in stature and had a face like a porcelain doll’s. Her long, shiny Shirley Temple curls fell slightly across the left side of her forehead, tickling her perfectly arched eyebrow. Her moody brown eyes complimented her butterscotch skin tone. Wearing a size six and standing five foot four, Laci was thick and curvy in all the right places. She was tight to def, with an apple-bottom ass; long, scar-free legs; and perfectly round titties. She had a bangin’ body, and all her clothes were right. She owned a number of name-brand articles and a few choice pieces, but she would look good even if she were dressed in rags.

“Mom,” Laci said wearily.

“Tell me, tell me, tell me,” her mother said anxiously, bouncing on the bed like a gossiping teenager. “What’s his name? What does he look like? Is he—”

“What are you talking about?” Laci asked, then sucked her teeth. “There is no he. And you know you’d be the first to know if there was.”

“So you say,” Margaret said, giving Laci a doubtful look.

“Mom, I’m not seeing anybody,” Laci said in a definitive tone.

“Come on, baby.” Margaret winked. “I’m not only your mother but your friend too. I won’t tell your father. I promise. Have I ever told him any of our secrets? Nooo . . . so come on. Get to talkin’, girlfriend. Is he tall, short, thin, buff, or what?”

“Mom,” Laci said, stepping out of the closet in a pouty manner, with an old sundress in her hand. “You are relentless.” Laci shook her head, rolled her eyes, and let out a soft laugh. “I don’t have a boyfriend. I promise.” She threw the sundress in the pile she had started on the floor, then walked over to her bed and sat in the middle of it. “But when I do get one, you’ll be the first to know. Okay?”

Margaret let out a sigh of defeat. “Okay, if you say you’re not seeing anybody, then I’ll have to believe you.” She grabbed ahold of Laci’s favorite teddy bear, which was lying on the bed. “So where are you going on your vacation? Have you thought of someplace nice?”

Laci got excited and was delighted about the change of subject. “I was thinking of Puerto Rico,” she said excitedly.

“Ooh, that sounds nice,” her mother replied with awe. “Whom are you going with? Your boyfriend?” she added with a wink.

Laci laughed and playfully threw a pillow at her mother.

“Oh, boy, you shouldn’t have done that.” Margaret prided herself on being one of the best pillow fighters in the business. “You don’t want to tell me who your boyfriend is, huh? Then take that!” She pounded Laci with the pillow and began to laugh hysterically.

“Mom, please,” Laci pleaded. “Stop! You’re messing up my hair!”

“If you didn’t have a boyfriend, then you wouldn’t care how your hair looked. Now, what’s his name?” Margaret asked, out of breath, getting in another hit.

“Wait, wait,” Laci said as the phone began ringing on the night table next to her bed. Out of breath, she picked up the receiver. “Hello?” she said in a raspy tone. She held her hand up to her mother, who was still poised to get one last lick in with the pillow she held tightly.

“Hey, Laci?” said the voice on the other end.

“Yes, this is she,” Laci replied, not recognizing the voice. “Who is this?” She slowly lowered her hand and gave the caller on the other end her full attention.

“Girl, it’s Monique,” the caller said in a pleasant tone. “What you doin’?”

“Laci,” her mother whispered behind her, “you wanna do the ‘girls’ night out’ thing? Ya know, celebrate the approaching end of the school year and you going off to college?”

“Hold on, Monique,” Laci said before covering the phone. She turned her attention back to Margaret. “What’d you say, Mom?”

“I said, Do you wanna go out and celebrate tonight? With graduation right around the corner and you going off to college, I figure that is cause enough for us to get out of this house and go do something.”

Whenever Margaret wasn’t volunteering as a nurse at the hospital, she enjoyed spending time with Laci. She had been a full-time head nurse until after Laci’s birth. And before Laci started preschool, she’d been a full-time stay-at-home mom. But with Laci out of the house for those few hours, Margaret had thought she’d go stir crazy. She’d sat at home, worrying about Laci and what was going on with her at school. And when she hadn’t worried about Laci, she’d worried about her husband.

She loved and trusted him with every ounce of her being, but with him being away from home so much, her insecurities sometimes got the best of her. One time, she’d even gone as far as hiring a private investigator to follow him. She’d spent a whopping twenty thousand dollars, not including the flight and hotel fees she had to pay, for a private eye to travel across the country to follow her husband. She’d probably spent a total of thirty thousand dollars to find out that her husband was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. But for her piece of mind, she’d felt it was worth every penny. However, not wanting to splurge in such a way again, she had later decided to do volunteer work at the hospital to occupy some of her time.

“Okay, Mom. After I get off the phone, let’s decide where we want to go,” Laci responded before directing her attention back to her phone conversation. “Monique, you still there?”

Laci’s mother hit her again with the pillow and threw it on the bed. Laci tried to hurry up and grab the pillow to get the last lick, but her mother was too quick in exiting the room.

“Yeah, I’m here,” Monique answered.

“Okay, girl,” Laci said, chuckling and breathing hard.

“Why you breathing so hard?”

“Fooling around with my crazy mother. She and I were having a pillow fight,” Laci giggled. “She wants to take me out to celebrate my upcoming graduation.”

As usual, Monique tried to make Laci’s words into something they weren’t. “Why you tryin’ to throw shit up in my face?” Monique snapped.

Laci should have seen it coming. Of all the girls in their little clique, which included Shaunna, Nay-Nay, and Lisa, Monique seemed to be the most envious of Laci’s relationship with her parents, especially the one she had with her mother.

Monique had lived with her grandmother for the past few years. Her mother had died of AIDS when she was just a freshman in high school. She hadn’t been an addict herself, but she had made the mistake of sleeping with a dope fiend who was infected with the HIV virus.

“What are you talking about?” Laci asked, getting sick of Monique’s attitude.

“What are you talking about?” Monique replied, mimicking Laci’s speech. “You sound like a White girl.”

Laci shook her head, exasperated. If one more person said she sounded White—even though with her Black mother and Black father, she was clearly Black, she would lose her mind. What did White people sound like compared to Black people, anyway? Laci would often think. And how did one go about sounding Black?

“Look,” Laci huffed, “was there a reason for this call, or did you just feel like picking an argument?”

“Never mind,” Monique said after sucking her teeth. “You ain’t gon’ wanna go. Forget it. I didn’t mean to interrupt your pillow fight. Go hang out with your mommy. I need to call the rest of my girls to make sure they’re wit it. Peace out.”

Before Laci knew it, the dial tone was buzzing in her ear from Monique hanging up on her.

Laci replaced the phone on the receiver, confused. Her face revealed the frustration she endured on a daily basis as a result of interacting with her girlfriends. It was safe to say that Laci was the prima donna of the pack. She definitely had the most going for her. And she was sweet and very low key, not loudmouthed and boisterous like her counterparts. Even though her parents were very well off and showered her with both love and material things, she didn’t floss it at all—not on purpose, anyway. But all that she had was quite visible, and it stood out all the more among a group of chicks who didn’t have shit. And during her earlier years, Laci had attended private school, while some of the other girls had attended public school or had just said the hell with school altogether.

It would probably be in her best interest to not associate with a flock of have-nots. And being connected with a popular clique of females, it was also probably in her best interest to be seen and not heard. No matter what came out of Laci’s mouth, it was always viewed as bragging, although she would never brag intentionally. Wanting so badly to be a part of something had blinded her to the point where she couldn’t see that not everybody was down for her. Some of those broads wanted to be her, and it was only a matter of time before jealousy would rear its ugly face to the point of no return.

Laci was so taken aback by Monique’s negative attitude that she didn’t even notice that her mother was standing at her bedroom door.

“Laci, what’s the matter?” Margaret asked, noticing the sudden change in Laci’s disposition.

“Uh, nothing,” Laci lied.

“Laci . . . ,” her mother said, giving her the “Don’t lie to me” look.

Laci sighed. “It’s just that the girls are always so confrontational with me. Everything I say is bad. Like when they ask me questions, it’s almost like they do it just to argue with me,” Laci said in frustration.

“I don’t understand,” her mother said, leaning in the doorway, with her arms folded. “Give me an example of what you’re talking about?”

“Like you and Dad.” Laci sighed again as she plopped down on the bed.

“What about us?” Margaret asked, confused.

“When I talk about you guys, they get all uptight. Most of them have only one parent or none at all. I’m tired of being sorry for having two parents who love me.”

“Really?” Margaret asked in a concerned voice as she walked over to the bed and sat down next to Laci. “I didn’t know this about your new friends. None of them live in a two-parent home?”

Laci nodded. “And I don’t care about that, Mom. I just want to hang with them, you know? When’s the last time you’ve known me to have a group of friends?”

Margaret remained silent.

“Exactly.” Laci’s shoulders fell, as did her head.

“And why is it that you want to hang out with them? I’m sure there’s plenty of nice kids at your school.”

Laci was silent for a moment. “Because . . . I don’t know. The other kids at school are blah. I just like having more down-to-earth friends—people I can relate and talk to. I love talking to you, but I don’t have sisters or brothers or anyone my age to kick it with.”

“I know you’re more intelligent than that,” Margaret said, hating that her daughter was so desperate to associate with the in-crowd. “I’ve never picked your friends for you.”

“That’s because the pickings have been slim to none,” Laci said.

“Maybe so, but with this group of so-called friends, the writing is on the wall, Laci. If a group or a person isn’t good for you, then you don’t need to be around them. Are you telling me that you don’t care how they treat you, that you’re willing to accept whatever to be a part of a clique?”

Laci let out a deep sigh. “Mom, please don’t lecture me . . . not today.” Laci fell back on the bed from emotional exhaustion.

“Okay, okay,” Margaret said, holding her hands up in surrender as she got up from the bed and walked over to the door. “You’re old enough to handle yourself. I’m not gonna tell you what to do, but I will tell you to be careful. You’re my daughter, and I love you. You know I’m here for you if you need me, Julacia.”

“Yeah, I know,” Laci said, turning over onto her stomach and resting her chin on her hands.

“I’ll always be here for you . . . no matter what.”

After ending her call with Laci, Monique phoned Lisa to hate on Laci with someone who shared in her envy. In their clique, misery always had company.

“What up, Lisa?” Monique asked through the phone receiver.

“Shit. Trying to get everything ready for y’all bitches. My house looks like shit,” Lisa said, lighting her loosey. She had just finished making a pitcher of red Kool-Aid. “What time y’all shooting through? Did you talk to everybody?”

“In about an hour,” Monique said. “I tried to be nice and called Laci to tell her to come through, but you know how that stuck-up bitch is.”

“What did she say?” Lisa asked curiously.

“Pretty much nothing, “Monique said after smacking her lips. “I hung up on that bitch.”

“What? Why?” Lisa asked as she sat down at her kitchen table, dying to hear the 411.

“’Cause before I could even say anything, she started up on that Mommy tip, what her and her Mommy were doing and what her and her Mommy were about to do,” Monique whined. “I didn’t want to hear all that bullshit.”

“Child, you got issues,” Lisa said, shaking her head and taking a puff at the same time. She exhaled smoke rings.

“She’s the one with issues. Miss damn Goody Two-shoes. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke,” Monique said, imitating Laci’s voice.

“You stupid.” Lisa laughed. “I feel you, though. If that bitch knew what our world tasted like, she’d stay buzzed trying to forget about the reality of it,” she said, then sucked her slightly crooked teeth. Crooked teeth or not, Lisa was still easy on the eyes. Her complexion was the color of a coconut’s shell. She wasn’t dark skinned or light skinned, just a perfect in-between. Her skin was smooth, but sometimes when she raised her eyebrows a certain way, the skin on her forehead folded over on itself like that of a pug. Lisa always wore her burgundy-dyed hair in some updo with pin curls. For Lisa, the weave was the best invention since the wheel. Her petite frame didn’t match her big, fly-ass mouth by far.

“Yeah, well, that bitch would need something a little stronger than a drink and a joint to bring her into our world,” Monique said, rolling her eyes, as if Lisa could see her through the phone.

Lisa gazed at nothing particular, squinting her eyes from the smoke that was curving toward her face. Suddenly, a slight grin showed up on her face. “Yeah. I can see her prissy ass now, all fucked up. But you’re right.”

“Right about what?” Monique asked curiously.

“She’d need something much stronger. Yeah, much, much stronger.” Lisa smiled. “Do me a favor, Mo. Call her back.”

“Why the fuck I gotta call her back?” Monique huffed.

“To make sure she comes through,” Lisa answered.

“I don’t give a fuck whether that bitch comes through or not, and you shouldn’t either,” Monique said. “You supposed to feel me on this one fo’ sho’.”

“Stop huffin’ and puffin’ and just get her on the phone and make sure she come through tonight,” Lisa said in a commanding tone. “It ain’t even that serious.”

“A’ight, fuck it,” Monique muttered. “I’ll call her back. But it ain’t like she’s ever the life of the party. All she ever does is sit back, turn her nose up, and watch us like we’re an experiment or something. I can only imagine the shit that be running through her head.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Lisa assured her. “I’m about to make sure she has a good time this time around. As a matter of fact, I’m going to see to it that, that bitch is on cloud nine.”

Lisa giggled, and Monique just sat there on the phone, puzzled by Lisa’s sudden interest in Laci hookin’ up with them.

“Was Nay-Nay home?” Lisa asked Monique.

“Yeah,” Monique replied. “She was chillin’ with her dude.”

“Dame?”

“Who else?”

“Kool with a K,” Lisa said. “Anyway, you get Laci on the horn. I need to holler at Nay-Nay for a minute.”

“Peace,” Monique said before hanging up the phone.

Lisa hung up the phone and quickly called up Nay-Nay.

“Yo, Ne, this is Lisa,” she said.

“What’s good, peoples?” Nay-Nay asked.

“Nothing much,” Lisa replied. “Just hung up with Monique.”

“Yeah, I just talked to her. I’m sitting here getting dressed now, fixin’ to head your way. What time everybody else supposed to be shootin’ through?”

“In a bit,” Lisa said. “Everybody but Laci, anyway. Monique called her up, but she be always letting her personal feelings get in the way of business.”

“What business?” Nay-Nay said as she held the phone between her ear and her shoulder while she pulled on her sock.

“Hey, is Dame around?” Lisa asked quickly, changing the volume of her voice to almost a whisper.

“Yeah, he’s in the shower.”

“Perfect!” Lisa said enthusiastically.

“Damn, girl. What’s up with you?” Nay-Nay asked. She wasn’t used to not knowing what was going on with her girls. Nay-Nay was kind of like the leader of their little clique, or more like the nucleus. Everyone was associated through her. Every one of the girls who were friends now had been Nay-Nay’s friend first.

Nay-Nay had a small build and a toffee-colored complexion. She could be a straight up bitch, the devil’s liveliest advocate, when she wanted to, but she had the soft, winning smile of an angel. Her bright white teeth sparkled like her light gray eyes. She looked a little like Vanessa Williams, wearing her shoulder-length hair relaxed straight, with a part down the middle. Nay-Nay had a rough edge about her. She always wore pants and sneaks with either a wife beater in warm weather or a T-shirt in the cold. Although she seemed a little tomboyish, her femininity stood out. She had her smile to thank for that.

“Well, while Monique and I were talking, something came to mind,” Lisa said, like she was some mad scientist. “Let me run it by you real quick. I think I’m going to need you to solicit Dame’s help. Unknowingly, of course.”

After hearing exactly what Lisa had in mind and ending her call, Nay-Nay sat on the bed for a moment and thought about how to execute the plan. Dame was still in the shower. He was worse than some woman with those long-ass showers. This was the perfect time to do what she needed to do without him knowing. Nay-Nay was a bad bitch, but Dame was a beast. She knew that if he caught her snooping through his shit, he’d beat her ass like she was some nigga.

Nay-Nay wasn’t totally comfortable with Lisa’s plan, but she, too, at times felt that the only reason Laci hung around them was to make herself feel important, like she was just sitting back and laughing at them, using them as a reminder of how good she had it in life. Well, it was about time somebody had a laugh at her expense.

Nay-Nay tiptoed over to the bathroom door and put her ear against it. She could hear the shower water still running, and Dame was singing the hook to one of the songs from the soundtrack to the movie Color.

“Ah, Dame,” Nay-Nay called out.

“What?” he grumbled. “You know I’m in the shower.”

“I was just going to ask you if you wanted me to roll a blunt,” she lied. “But never mind.”

No one was as suspicious as Dame. He didn’t trust anyone, especially not no bitch. His antennae were always going up, alerting him to something shady. There was something in Nay-Nay’s voice that made him cut his shower short.

Nay-Nay didn’t know where Dame kept his stash, because he was always moving it from spot to spot. She had to search several different spots before he got out of the shower. She searched his jacket pockets as well as under his mattress and bed frame. Nothing. She went through his closet and VHS rack and still couldn’t find it. It was then that she looked over at his television and noticed an abnormality.

The back of the television was crooked. The only reason Nay-Nay noticed it was that she stood eye level to the TV. She walked over to the television set and wiggled the back of it and sure enough it popped off.

“Jackpot!” she said in a soft whisper.

She removed the ziplock bag from the exposed slot in the back of the TV and took two capsules from it. Then suddenly she heard Dame creeping, so she quickly placed the baggie back in its place and sealed the television back up. It was just in the nick of time, too, because Dame opened the bathroom door.

Acting like she was slingin’ on the corner and the po po had just rolled up on her, Nay-Nay placed the capsules in her mouth, one in each cheek. That was a trick she had learned from her days working for Dame on the block.

“What the fuck you doin’?” Dame asked as he strode into the room, nude and wet. Dame was a short man who was built like a stone gargoyle. He had thick arms and legs, with a barrel chest. His beady eyes bore into Nay-Nay as he waited for an answer.

“Oh, you scared me,” she gasped. “I didn’t hear you get out of the shower.”

Dame stood there, piercing her with his eyes, waiting on a response.

“I was trying to see if I left my purple thong over here. You seen it? Maybe it’s at the other apartment.”

. . .