James Frey - The Final Testament of the Holy Bible

Is there a reason you don’t want it out?

I sat down and put everything in my pocket.

My daughter don’t need to be seeing that.

Why?

You a fucking fool, man. Why you think?

You think she doesn’t know.

She ain’t old enough to know nothing.

If you say so.

I do.

You ashamed of it?

What do you think?

That you should stop.

You don’t know shit, white boy.

He smiled and didn’t say nothing. We started eating. He was helping Mercedes using her fork. I just watched her, and watching him with her made me hate myself more, knowing what I had in my pocket. I could feel it there. Heavy and bulging out. I was always pretending Mercedes thought I was just a regular momma. That our life was a regular life. Or at least regular for where we was living, for where we was from. I was just another girl with a kid trying to do my best and struggling. And in a way it was that way. But I was also knowing it was wrong. Knowing I could do better. Even in the way that we was.

We finished our lunch and Ben told Mercedes it was time for her to go napping and he took her into Momma’s room. I sat at the table and thought about what was in my pocket ’cause it’s all I wanted even though it was hurting to think about it and I heard Ben singing some kind of lullaby to Mercedes. It made me remember when I used to sing to her, before I was working at the club, before Alberto got arrested, before Momma got sick. When he was finished, he closed the door and came out. I was still sitting and he sat down across and just stared at me. His eyes was looking different from when I used to know him. More black. Blackest things I ever saw. And he had been healing when he was sleeping. The bruising on his face was almost gone and his cuts was healing good. It made the scars stick out more. Made me be seeing them more. Made me really be understanding how much he changed. He must have been thirty or forty pounds skinnier. And he was whiter. Most white people I don’t notice. They all be looking like they got the same skin. Just white. Ben was white white. Paper white. And them scars was even whiter. Like glossy paint over regular paint. And he just stared at me. Them black eyes calming me down so I could actually be feeling my heart slowing down. And when I was real calm, and not even wanting to smoke no more, I spoke. What happened to you, Ben?

I changed.

No shit there. What happened?

It doesn’t matter.

Does to me.

What matters is what I have become.

What’s that?

Someone who loves you.

You don’t know me well enough to love me.

One must know oneself to love, not know others.

You sound like a preacher.

I’m not.

You gonna try to save me?

You’re going to save you.

How I’m going to do that?

Give me your pipe, your drugs.

What you gonna do with them?

Put them on the table.

They’re mine.

Yes.

I need them.

No.

I do.

Why?

Because I fucking do.

Put them on the table. I’m going to show you something.

You try to use them and I’ll fuck you up.

He smiled, stared at me, waited. If I saw him on the street, I’d think he was a crackhead for fucking real. But sitting with him and talking to him, I didn’t think it. I didn’t have no reason to trust him, ’cept how he was looking at me, but I did. Trusted him like I had never trusted no man or no white person ever. So I took my shit outta my pocket and put it on the table. Ben didn’t even look at it. Just kept looking at me. And then he stood up and walked around the table and leaned over and started kissing me. Real slow at first, real light, just brushing his lips right against mine. And it felt good, felt right. So we started kissing more, using our lips like we was meaning it, using our tongues. Kissing like we meant it, like we was in love. And he lifted me outta that chair, like I weighed nothing. And he took off my clothes. And he put me on the table. And he licked me, and sucked me, and fucked me till I couldn’t see straight. Lying right next to my drugs. He showed me how to get high. He showed me what it felt like to feel good. He fucked me, and he loved me, and when he came inside me, it fulfilled more than any person, school, church, book, or God had in my life. He whispered I love you in my ear and he came inside me and it felt like I was right inside. It felt like what it was supposed to feel like to be believing in all those other things.

When we was finished that first time, he stayed inside me a long time. Just stayed inside and kissed me and held me. And then he picked me up, still inside me, and carried me to bed. And he put me down on that bed with his arms around me and we went to sleep. I didn’t think about being poor. I didn’t think about what I was doing for money. I didn’t think about my brother rotting in a fucking cell. About my mother dying in a fucking hospital where nobody cared. About being black in a country where it means I ain’t got no chance. About my daughter who wasn’t gonna have no chance either. About a life stretching out in front of me where it never gets to be any better. The feeling of arms around me, of love in my heart, it was more powerful than any of the negativity I knew was existing in the world for me. That feeling of love killed it all.

When I woke up, he was gone. I went in to be looking in on Mercedes and she was still sleeping. I was supposed to be working so I started getting ready. Taking me a shower and doing my makeup in the bathroom. When I went out to the kitchen, my shit was still there on the table. Made me fucking sick to see it there, made me sick to be thinking that’s what I’d been doing for the last year. Made me sick to be thinking why I’d been doing it and why I was just getting ready. For money. For money that didn’t make a difference. Didn’t get me or my daughter out of anywhere or anything. Didn’t change how I felt in my heart or how I was feeling when I looked in the mirror. Was just something I could hold in my hand. Money don’t mean nothing when your heart is empty.

So I picked that shit up and threw it out the window. Figured some crackhead would find it and have a surprise, there was enough of ’em around. And I didn’t go to work. Didn’t even bother calling. They wasn’t gonna miss me. They might not have even been noticing I was gone. Was gonna be easy to find another girl, ’cause they always too many out there willing to throw it around for the money. I ain’t judging, ’cause I did it. It’s the way of the world. You use what you got, and that’s all that too many women got.

I waited for Ben. Mercedes woke up and I got her and gave her a big long hug. We went out and started playing in the living room, singing songs and tickling. I started getting a little sick, was starting to realize I might be needing the crack I throwed out. I went over to the window and looked down and it was still there. Was some kind of miracle it hadn’t been picked up. I know in the Bible they be saying miracles is withering some motherfucking fig tree or some shit, but in the world I live in, the real fucking world, a miracle is a vial of crack lying on the ground in an American housing project unclaimed for more than three fucking minutes. But there it was. Tempting me. Calling to me. Not even calling, it was screaming at me. I could hear Mercedes behind me. I started telling myself love stronger than drugs, stronger than anything, love stronger, but telling ain’t always believing. You can tell yourself anything you want, but until you believe what you’re telling yourself, you’re wasting words. I was ready to go down there. Ready to go. So I turned and walked towards the door. When I opened it, Ben was sitting on the floor. He smiled. I started talking.