Dope Sick by Walter Dean Myers Page A

I asked Kelly if he was sure there wasn’t anything happening outside. He said he wasn’t sure.
    â€œYou think I’m going to be okay?” I asked him.
    â€œI guess it depends on what you mean by okay,” he said. “Everything you telling me sounds like you haven’t been okay in a long time. You don’t know what to go back and change.”
    â€œHow you going to change something that happened in the past anyway?” I asked. “That don’t make any sense.”
    â€œSo let’s go on to the future,” Kelly said.
    I saw the screen flicker and there I was, sliding up the stairs to the roof landing. I knew what was going to come next.
    â€œHey, Kelly, stop it,” I said. “Yo, man, what’s wrong with you?”
    He stopped the screen image, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the still picture. I was half standing, half crouched over. I saw the Nine still in my hand. I looked up at my face. My eyes were like something wild.
    I thought I saw the image move and I started to ask Kelly not to let it run, but then I saw it wasn’t moving. It was the image in my head that was still going. I was remembering what I had seen before. It was like a nightmare I could see with my eyes open.
    â€œBreathe,” Kelly said.
    I didn’t notice I had been holding my breath.The pain in my arm was getting worse.
    â€œKelly, I ain’t doing too good getting rid of this pain,” I said.
    â€œYeah, I see that,” Kelly said.
    â€œYou know, the worst pain I ever had, I didn’t even feel it?” I said. “I woke up in the middle of the night and I was like—all crying and shit—and I don’t know why. I didn’t have a bad dream and I hadn’t even gone to bed sad. But I woke up crying like anything. That got me so down, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I still don’t know why that happened.”
    â€œYou deeper into your jones than you want to talk about?” Kelly said. “How long you been tracking?”
    â€œToo long.”
    â€œThought you were scared of needles?”
    â€œIt moves you away from yourself quick,” I said. “I know it’s foul, but that’s where I’m at. Can you get the picture back on the street?”
    Kelly clicked the picture, and we were looking at the street again. It had started to rain. One police car was still parked under the streetlight.Through the glass I could see two figures. They weren’t clear, just sitting in the front seat. Every so often the wiper swept across the windshield, and for a tiny moment I could see the policemen inside. I wondered what they were talking about, if they were hating me.
    â€œYou think that cop is going to live?” I asked.
    â€œHow I know?”
    â€œWhat you think?”
    Kelly just shrugged.
    I wanted to hear me talking or Kelly talking or even a car passing on the street. Anything but the silence. I tried to think of what I wanted to change in my life, to go back and get something that Kelly could dig on. That’s what I wanted to do. It was like he had a way of understanding me and looking inside of me that made me feel good. No, not good, just that he understood. He was right in saying I was trying to unknow things about myself, things that I hadn’t told anybody before. Some of the things I had heard people say about me. Lauryn had said some of them. But there were things that I wasn’t sure about. Like if I likedmyself the way I hoped other people would like me, like I was trying to get Kelly to like me.
    â€œHey, Kelly, you ever hide what you doing?” I asked. “Like you don’t want anybody to peep your hole card?”
    â€œI guess so,” Kelly said. “Sometimes. You hiding something?”
    â€œYou were talking about me not wanting to know things, but I got more things I don’t want other people knowing,” I said. “I got some stuff in me that I don’t even