In My Hood Read Online Free PDF

taxi cab driver announced.
    Desiree looked around the old neighborhood. Everything basically looked the same. A lot of new faces flocked the block, but it was still the same traffic flow.
    “You gonna get out?” the cabdriver asked.
    “Um . . . yeah.”
    She went into her pocket and paid the cabby. She reluctantly opened the door and stepped out. The cab pulled away from the curb. Desiree stood on the sidewalk and looked around as if she was a stranger to the neighborhood. She looked in everyone’s face that walked past her. She tried to see if there was anyone she recognized. Desiree found herself standing in front of the building where she and Bilal used to live, and a chill ran over her entire body. The place was abandoned and boarded up. She wanted to cry as she relived the past standing right there on the streets.
    “Red tops! Got them red tops,” a man yelled.
    “What up, ma? Got them red tops. You need anything?” he asked her.
    “I’m good,” she said, shaking her head at the man as she viewed the contents in his hand.
    Desiree found herself walking the streets in search of her friend. She had gone by where her friend used to live, only to be disappointed that she had since moved.
    As she walked, she spotted the old friend she had been looking for coming out of the liquor store. Beverly wasn’t an addict, but she was an alcoholic. She used to come up to Desiree’s apartment with her boyfriend who used both heroin and cocaine. Some call it speed balling.
    Desiree, Bilal, and Beverly’s boyfriend, Mike, would get high, and Beverly would drink her liquor. She had two kids and an apartment on the same block. Beverly was a good woman, and Desiree loved her company.
    “Bev,” she called out to her.
    Beverly turned around.
    “Rae-Rae?” She squinted.
    “Yeah, it’s me.”
    “Get the hell outta here. What’s up, girl?” Beverly shouted, walking toward her.
    The two women embraced. Desiree could smell the foul, stale alcohol odor coming from her. They stood back and looked at each other. Beverly exposed a rotten-tooth smile.
    “Damn, girl. You look good. When you get out?”
    “I just came home.”
    “Where you headed?” Beverly asked.
    “That’s what I’m tryna figure out. I don’t know where to go,” Desiree stated sincerely.
    “I feel you, girl.” She suddenly looked down at her feet. “How you taking Bunchy’s death?”
    “You know about that?” she asked, surprised.
    “Hell yeah. Now since when you known me not to know the low down on anything that goes on in the hood?”
    “You right, but he died in a prison upstate, not in the hood.”
    “I got ways of finding things out,” she boasted.
    There was an awkward silence between the two women as they walked. Desiree felt the tears welling up in her eyes.
    “It sure is good to see you. I missed you, girl,” Beverly said, putting her arm around Desiree’s shoulder, trying to change the subject.
    “You still with Mike?” she inquired as she wiped the tears from her eyes.
    “Please. Mike got locked up.”
    “For real?”
    “Yep. A lot of things have changed around here.”
    “I can tell. There are a lot of new faces out here. A lot of young boys, too,” Desiree said, looking around.
    Beverly dug into her brown paper bag and unscrewed the top to her bottle of poison. She peeled the bag back, and Desiree watched her turn the bottle up to her chapped lips and take a deep gulp of the poison.
    “Yeah, a lot of people you use to run with are gone, girl,” she said, screwing the top back onto the bottle.
    “Gone? Gone where?”
    “Dead or in jail. Hey, Cookie went to rehab and got clean. I heard she’s doing real good. She moved down south too.”
    “Wow, that’s good.”
    The two women continued to walk down the street.
    “Hey, Rae-Rae, if you want, you can stay with me.”
    “I don’t know, Bev . . . you got kids, and I don’t want to get in the way.”
    “Get in the way of what? Please, girl, you can stay with me. You