A Knock at Midnight(34)
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Just ran into Baby Jack down at the Piggly Wiggly. He said what’s up.”
“Aww, how is Baby Jack?” Sharanda said, clipping a towel around Alisha’s neck. “I haven’t seen him in a minute!” She’d gone to school with Keith Jackson, called Baby Jack on account of his being the youngest of so many brothers and sisters Sharanda had lost count.
“He’s all right,” Alisha said. “Trippin’ like everybody over this drought. I swear, it’s been dry for weeks.”
When crack hit Terrell hard in the late eighties, Sharanda hadn’t paid much attention. She had been in Dallas starting cosmetology school, living life, dreaming of the very salon they stood in now. But Terrell was a small town, and she knew some of the people she grew up with were selling drugs. Even Cooter had gotten involved, getting arrested a few times for selling weed. She didn’t think much of it. There weren’t a whole lot of jobs out there, and people had to eat.
“You know Baby Jack usually gets his supply from his nephew. But he’s got nothin’,” Alisha said as Sharanda rinsed her hair in the basin. “Shoot, Sharanda—all those people you know in Dallas? Seems like there’s a drought all the time these days. If you knew somebody with a supply for when times are like this—you’d do real well out here.”
Sharanda stayed quiet for the rest of the afternoon while she worked, absently nodding while Alisha filled her in on the goings-on of mutual friends and acquaintances. The truth was, she’d been thinking about it. Another friend had said the same thing to her just the week before. People in Terrell would be steady complaining about a dry spell for weeks while the money was still flowing in the city. And she did know everybody in Dallas—she’d commuted to A New Attitude for a long time, reluctant to leave the pulsing energy of the city.
A drought simply meant that the drugs had stopped flowing from suppliers. Sometimes someone had gotten arrested up the line, maybe a major bust at the border. The flow of drugs from source to major supplier to midlevel supplier to street dealer to user would be affected. For a small town like Terrell, where people supplemented their income by selling a rock or a dime bag of weed every now and then to cover bills and groceries, or were grinding full-time like Baby Jack, dry spells hit hard. Lean times got leaner. Whoever could make the connection between someone who had dope and someone whose supply had dried up like Baby Jack’s would surely make some quick money.
“If you think of somebody, call Baby Jack,” Alisha said as she left the salon. “He’ll hook you up good for a tip like that, for sure.”
When Sharanda asked around about what Alisha and others were saying about business opportunities in Terrell, everybody said the same thing. “You gotta meet Spider. Even when Dallas is dry, Spider’s always in action. Big-time here and in Houston, all over, really. He went to college a few years ago here in Terrell. He’s cool. And if you get in with him, you’re set.”
Sharanda didn’t doubt it. Everybody in Dallas knew Spider for the far reach of his game. He owned a nightclub in Houston, an even hotter strip club, a high-class hair salon, and more. He appeared at the hottest spots in town in his drop-top Jag.
The next time she went down to Houston, Sharanda asked a cousin to introduce them. Spider was dark skinned, slim, and saw the world through designer glasses. When they met he greeted Sharanda kindly, with a soft-spoken, familiar manner, and within minutes they were talking about mutual friends in Terrell and their mamas’ hot-water cornbread recipes. In his burgundy sweatsuit and Air Max, he looked like he was still running track at Southwestern Christian College in Terrell. Spider took to her right away, said he knew he could trust her. Plus, he said, he admired her business spirit. He’d heard about A New Attitude in Terrell. Sharanda had spunk and fire, and he liked that.
When they parted ways, Sharanda had a new job. Later that night, she called Baby Jack.
“Next time you have a problem, just call me,” she told him. “I got you.”
The work was pretty easy. Baby Jack had a bunch of suppliers, number one among them his own nephew, so he called Sharanda only when there was a drought for real, once every three to four months or so. Sharanda and Spider were cool by then, chatting by phone on occasion about the running of his salon and her ideas for a small club in Terrell, the mini drive-through burger spot she’d gotten off the ground as her first cooking venture. When Baby Jack called she paged Spider, who told her when to come see him in Houston. She’d get the cash from Baby Jack to purchase a kilo of cocaine from Spider, usually about $17,000 to $20,000, then pick up a friend or have her little sister Weasel ride with her so she wouldn’t get drowsy in the car.
Mostly, the four-hour drive down I-45 was monotonous, and pretty soon after she got to Houston she’d be turning around and coming straight back. Still, she made a thousand dollars each time she went, sometimes five thousand if Spider was selling kilos for less than normal. She shared some of the money with the friend who drove with her, paid extra bills, covered gymnastics classes for Clenesha, did repairs, bought equipment for the hair salon, and helped her mom around the house. She didn’t really think about the risk, never felt nervous. It was just something she did for some extra money from time to time.
In the months Baby Jack didn’t need her, Sharanda never thought for a minute about getting deeper into the game. She had a vision for her life—expanding her hair salon, maybe even following her passion for cooking and opening a larger restaurant. When the work ended—when Spider went down—Sharanda was neither relieved nor discouraged. It was what it was. The side hustle had been good while it lasted. Clenesha was getting older, and Sharanda had started to think more about what would happen if she was ever pulled over on I-45. That part of her life was over.