I remember the day Whitney Houston died quite vividly because I was the one to break the news to Shawntal personally. She cried for what seemed like an entire hour as we sat together in her hotel room and passed the pipe back and forth. A few days later, with the singer’s death still fresh on my mind, I called Shawntal with the expectation of my still-grieving drug dealer to pick up her own phone.
To my surprise, it was a man who answered. He told me that Shawntal was out of town for a few days, and that he was “taking over business” for her while she was gone.
It seemed odd, but I could really care less at the time; I just wanted to purchase drugs and really didn’t care who or where they came from. The unknown man told me to meet him at Seventh and Howard, which wasn’t anywhere near where Shawntal normally operated, but was easy enough to get to from the Civic Center on my stolen bicycle.
I called him when I got to the meeting spot, and within a few minutes I saw a large heavyset Black man approach me from the east side of Howard. I recognized him as Shawntal’s uncle, who I had met one time prior when we both helped her move to a new hotel after T-Bone had been arrested.
The man came up to me and said, “Ay, you remember me? Shawntal gonna be gone for a while, but you can just call me from now on.” He handed me a piece of folded up paper that presumably had his number on it.
“Ok, sounds good, is she alright though? Everything ok?” I asked as I slipped the piece of paper in my pocket.
“Yea, she all good, just had to handle somethin’ outta town, you know? Just call me when you need somethin’ until she come back.” he said dismissively.
“Aight, well if you talk to her say whatsup for me. You got the shit?” I asked, which was shortly followed by a hand-to-hand exchange.
“Listen, man, I put a ‘lil extra in there for you,” He shot me a fiendish smirk and then continued, “I know you used to that shit Shawntal be slangin’, but trust me - my shit better. You’ll see what I’m talkin’ about. Hit me up anytime.”
Everything seemed legit, and yes, his heroin was a bit stronger than what I was getting from Shawntal, so I had no qualms for the time being. Shawntal was struggling in her attempt to handle T-Bone’s business while he was in jail, so it wasn’t surprising to hear that she may have taken a break and left town for a bit.
I continued to buy dope from her uncle for about a week straight, before I got an unexpected call from Shawntal on her original cell line. She told me to meet her at a hotel on Van Ness and Bush Street, and that she needed to discuss something with me in person. I needed to buy some heroin anyway, and her uncle wasn’t picking up the phone at the moment, so I made the trip out to SF and hiked my way up Van Ness.
It was your typical Tenderloin hotel: desk person behind bulletproof glass, drug addicts and hookers meandering up and down the hallways, shared bathrooms in remarkably disgusting condition, and an overall morbid vibe that you could taste in your nostrils.
I went upstairs to room nineteen where Shawntal said she’d be waiting and knocked on the door. She welcomed me into the surprisingly kempt room, which was currently being occupied by her and her younger sister. I had seen Shawntal’s sister a few times, but having never been formally introduced, our communication rarely went beyond a head nod. Nevertheless, I knew her name was Shanice, and could almost guarantee that she didn’t know mine.
Aside from her trademark sinister glare, Shanice intimidated me for a number of reasons. First off, she was very attractive. Not in a standard of sense - due to the years of street prostitution, transient living and drug abuse - but underneath the layers of untreated trauma, anyone could see that this was a very beautiful woman. She had short, straightened hair that was partially dyed purple, and her body was quite voluptuous despite her skinny frame, which was impressive given her extensive history of using meth. Sure, she was tattered from drugs, but you could tell that if she cleaned herself up, she would be stunning.
On the contrary, Shawntal was not exceptionally beautiful. She wasn’t ugly, but her many years of meth use was more pronounced on the skin of her weathered face. Some might have called her a “handsome gal”; she definitely had some overtly masculine features. Regardless, she was still attractive in her own way, albeit her more stalwart qualities. Although curvy, Shawntal was equally muscular without an ounce of extra fat.
She may have been a few inches shorter than her sister, but she still about the same height as me. My fighting weight is about a hundred and sixty-five pounds - meaning my meth weight was no higher than one-thirty - but in either circumstance, Shawntal would put higher numbers on a scale. This isn’t saying much, but for a lady who shot up crystal meth daily, you’d expect her to be just skin and bones. Far from it, Shawntal was ripped; she had a strapping frame to begin with, accompanied by an almost nonsensical amount of muscle for a female drug addict. Throw in an assortment of psychopathic tendencies, and you wound up with someone you wouldn’t want to fuck with while you were strung out. Fortunately, I was passive even in my own lunacy, on top of the fact that we had grown to get along relatively well.
Keep in mind that I had been awake at this point for about seventy-two hours on a meth bender, and was trying to buy some heroin from Shawntal so I could bring about a smooth comedown. Despite being in a state of complete physical and mental fatigue, when Shawntal’s sister offered me to hit the meth pipe, I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I took a large hit, blew out a sweet chemical plume, and passed the pipe over to Shawntal.
She shook her head suggesting that she didn’t want to take a hit.
“So, Girard,” Shawntal never could remember my actual name. “Why you haven’t called? Don’t look like you stopped gettin’ high.”
“I called your number like a week ago, your uncle picked up, said that you went out of town or some shit...Why? What’s goin’ on?” I already knew something was up when Shawntal said she needed to talk, but I figured the issue would be between her and her uncle.
“Well shit, Girard...you didn’t know that someone stole my phone? You didn’t know nothin’ ‘bout that? Somehow my uncle wound up with it, and that nigga been stealin’ all my clients.” Shawntal spoke with a faint hint of sarcasm. When she paused, I stayed silent and was worried that I knew where this was heading. “So I got a new phone from the Metro store, but you ain’t call me since I did that. Then I heard from my cousin that you been buyin’ dope from my uncle.”
“Well shit, I didn’t know about any of that. Your uncle told me you left town, gave me his number…said he was takin’ over until you got back.” I said.
“Yeah, well fuck that nigga.” Shanice chimed in.
I was confused at where any guilt on my part could be found, and saw the whole issue solely between Shawntal and her uncle. Despite this, Shawntal seemed marginally suspicious that I may have played a role in it. Due to my contact with her uncle soon after the phone incident – and more importantly, my lack of contact with her – had her thinking I was in on the uncle’s scheme. These suspicions weren’t entirely ludicrous but seemed to be dismissed after our short conversation.
She looked me up and down for a few moments, then put her arms on my shoulders as she said, “Alright Girard, you good homie. But I had to feel you out first.” and then sat back down on the bed.
I knew I was innocent, and now Shawntal appeared to think so as well, but I remained hesitant to believe that she was fully convinced. I was sitting on a chair opposite the bed where the two girls sat, now hunched over to unzip my backpack and retrieve a pair of shoes I’d found. They were women’s Air Jordans, and I figured Shawntal might want to trade me some dope for them, but as I reached into the open bag and pointed my head down, I got hit with a sucker punch directly to my left ear.
It dazed me good, and after tipping over in the fetal position, the ringing in my ear pierced through to the other side of my skull. After getting beat on for another thirty seconds or so, the kicks and punches subsided as it became clear I wasn’t going to fight back. I was strung out, underweight, and too malnourished to stand a chance against two toddlers, let alone two full-figured women.
Aside from a few kicks, Shanice refrained from striking me. However, at some point during the commotion, I caught a glimpse of the large knife she was wielding which was the main reason I didn’t even attempt to retaliate. Shawntal backed away from me, allowed me to get a few of my bearings straight, and ordered me to strip naked.
I was baffled at this request, yet slightly intrigued about this new direction. “Were they going to kill me, or fuck me?” I thought to myself, not ruling anything out of the realm of possibility. Stranger things have happened on meth. This wasn’t the typical kind of foreplay that I was accustomed to, but it was working in some capacity. I’ll be honest - there was something deeply erotic about getting the shit kicked out of me by two sexy, demonically high, well-built ladies. The fact that they were Black was also enticing; I had never dated or done anything sexual with a Black girl yet in my life, let alone two that were related to one another, let alone two that had just physically assaulted me. Sometimes there’s a fine line between abuse and arousal for people that get a kick out of poisoning their brain like me. Shanice then punched me in the mouth and told me to lay my cracker-ass on the floor, and that’s when I entirely ruled out the possibility of anything romantic.
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