Page 1 of Honey Sugar
CHAPTER ONE
Green buds wiggled from beneath the rich soil. My second batch of seedlings sprouted and were emerging strong. This would be a good crop. It would yield dense buds and I’d get a shit ton of money once I sold it.
I took pictures of the newest group and stepped out of the humid, cramped closet. Once I was outside the thick four walls, I heard an engine sputtering and knocking outside. I shut my eyes for a second before heading downstairs to open the front door. Sure enough, my mother was sitting in her navy Ford Focus with her head bowed over the steering wheel. Muttering a prayer to the saints, no doubt.
“Mama, you still out here fooling with this damn car?” I stuck my head through the window and it made her damn near jump out of her skin.
“Lord, Titan. I didn’t hear you come out of the house” I don’t know how she didn’t. Every time anyone left the front door, the screen door slammed like a clap of thunder. It was impossible not to hear. Shit, even the neighbors knew when we left the house.
I shielded my eyes from the bright February sun and walked over to the hood of Mama’s car. It was a piece of shit but it got her from point A to point B. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell Mr. Anderson when I get to work. This is the fifth day this month I’ve been late because of car troubles.”
“Mama, take my car. I don’t know why you keep trying to drive this bucket everywhere.”
“You have things to do, Titan. I don’t feel right taking your car. I’m a grown woman. I can provide for myself.” She got out of the car and folded her arms defiantly like a child. The blue scrubs she wore looked nice against her ebony skin. Made her look like royalty.
“Your son has a working car.” I took the keys from my pocket and handed them to her. Her lips drew in tight. Her mouth was full of words to hurl at me but if she let them all out, she’d be late for work.
“I won’t be back ‘til tomorrow sometime, Titan. You know how Mardi Gras is. There’ll be all kinds of people coming into the hospital. I hate to leave you stranded for that long.” She rested her arm on top of my Toyota Avalon and stared at me. Her eyebrows lifted slightly and the corners of her mouth turned down.
“Public transportation is a modern marvel, Mama. I can take the bus where I need to go. Now, would you please get to work?” She smacked her lips together and looked down at her watch. Time wouldn’t let her fuss anymore so she got in my car and drove off. When she blew a kiss at me, I looked around the street before I pretended to grab it from the air like I’d done ever since I was little. Being nineteen didn’t stop me from being a mama’s boy.
Once she was gone, I went in the house and up to the attic. Mama was on my mind heavy. She was doing everything right. She was a registered nurse working doubles, going for her BSN, and still had trouble paying for everything around the house. I knew she needed a new car and I would have gladly offered to buy her one but pride runs in our family like an Olympic sprinter going for gold.
Mama was fine taking help from me whenever I did things silently. I paid the electric bill, the internet bill, and kept food in the fridge without her having to ask and without me having to mention it. The minute I tried to openly offer help though, I got the speech about not taking care of her.
I didn’t know if she knew it or not, but I’d been taking care of her since I turned thirteen and started selling high-grade weed that I grew myself. Taking care of Mama was all I knew how to do once we got back on our feet after Hurricane Katrina.
I left cash in her wallet and made sure she had all the scrubs she could ever ask for. I paid for her car to get fixed once upon a time when it was fixable. I took care of repairs around the house and made sure whenever she was hungry, she had something to eat.
I could do so much more if her pride would move out of the way.
I didn’t mind either.
Why wouldn’t I give the world to the woman who brought me into it?
The attic was a tight space that didn’t allow me to stand all the way up or else my head would kiss the wooden beams running along the roof. I curled my spine and bowed my head, sliding sideways until I was able to sit at the table in the middle of the floor. I slid the stool closer to the table and sighed, looking over the black bag of marijuana buds I’d tirelessly clipped for hours last night. I reached above my head and clicked on the bright light. I needed to do a once over before I packed the dense, sticky buds into smell-proof Ziploc bags for transport.
I was meticulous about my craft. I had to be. That’s how I got top dollar for my product. Since marijuana was still highly illegal for recreational use in Louisiana, I had to be careful about how I sold it. I was too smart to be a street soldier, selling weed on the block. I did it the way that would make me the most money. I sold my medical-grade marijuana to the only legal dispensary in New Orleans. It was an easy $5,000 every harvest. In between harvests, I sold the dispensary edibles I made weekly.
It kept money in my pocket and in Mama’s.
I listened to Curtis Mayfield while I trimmed the leaves I missed. Mama put an old school love for music inside of me that I couldn’t shake. Things didn’t feel right if I wasn’t working alongside Anita Baker, Curtis Mayfield, or The Isley Brothers. I stretched black latex gloves over my tattooed hands, slipped a medical facemask over my ears, grabbed my favorite scissors and went to work.
It took me an hour to work through the bag of buds but when I was done, they looked immaculate. Like some shit you’d see on Instagram. I took a few pictures of my work then started the bagging process. It took a half hour but when I was done I had six gallon-sized bags of weed ready to go. Everything totaled out to two pounds.
I called my boy at the dispensary and waited for him to answer. I needed a favor and he owed me several. “Yo, Shadow. What’s good? You making the delivery today, right?” I never went by my real name when I was selling weed. I was too paranoid. My weed mentor, Don, the guy who ran the dispensary told me how easy it was to get caught using your real name. I started going by Shadow when I was fourteen and I never looked back. The only people who called me Titan were people in my family. To the world, I was Shadow, and I moved like one too.
“Yeah, about that. I need a favor, Mario. Moms took my car to work and she won’t be home until tomorrow. Can you come pick it up for me?”
“Do I get a cut of all this fucking money?” He asked with a laugh. I knew he was serious though. No amount of laughing could mask it.
“I’ll slide you some money, Mario. Just come get this shit.” I hated having weed on me for any longer than I had to. Getting locked up wasn’t on my list of things to do. The quicker I made the handoff, the better.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” We ended the call and I cut the music off, stood to my feet and pulled the two pounds of marijuana off the table. I put everything in a book bag and got it ready for when Mario came over.
He was true to his word. Ten minutes after we hung up, he walked through the front door with a curvy brown skin chick behind him. Mario always stayed with girls. I wasn’t shocked. I barely focused on her for more than a few seconds though. She wasn’t on my list of things to care about. I wanted my money. Even though Mario was my boy, I still had a 9 mm tucked in my waistband in case shit got crazy.
I didn’t trust anyone.
