An Angel's Vice

Chapter 11 - Change of Heart

November, 25th. 2008
West Perrine, Miami-Dade

Lauren is aware that she looks like shit; everybody and their distant mother made it their mission to let her know in case she didn't. She hasn't slept since she received that reading from the Santera her godmother sent her to in South Beach—and nothing helped either, not even the strongest strain of indica could knock her out. Candy would die soon, and Lauren would suffer a series of misfortunes for not doing as she was instructed to do by her Godmother in order to obtain the favour of Shango. She had to accept the fate that was already in motion. But because it hasn't even been a year yet and she'll go through the horrifying tragedy she just went through in January again, nothing can quiet her mind long enough to take a break from it.

She tells this to no one no matter how badly she needs a friend to vent to. She goes through the motions with her gang and handles business with absence of emotion, silence as her default, and distance as her protection to keep it all together. Sure, she'll let loose and laugh at something genuinely funny, or play along to limit everyone's suspicions. She'll even accept invitations to go out and kick it at Super Wheels, a park, someone's crib within the West Perrine and Kendall area, or in front of stores in hoods under her control. Lauren kept herself busy...but at what cost?

It's close to noon and some boys of Callado Sur take up space in her living room, competing in Madden on the PlayStation 2, hollering and bickering. Six girls and Sasha sit at the table several feet from behind the couch, sorting and separating supplies of weed, pharmaceuticals, recently cooked meth and crack, cocaine, and shrooms. Lauren makes her reappearance from a cold shower, hair freshly wet and curly, dampening her white tee as she hurricanes around the kitchen to fix herself a cup of espresso filled to the brim with Jack Daniels. She ignores the return of Ariel and Raúl, who brought Randy and some other guy with them. They greet her and she merely grunts, sipping her spiked espresso in intervals, propped against the kitchen counter clammed with opened cereal boxes, a carton of eggs that have all been cracked, dirty dishes that have yet to make it to the sink, and cups of orange juice that have either been forgotten about or abandoned just before the finish.

On a regular, healthy day, Lauren would notice the disarray.

"Oye, bichota," Raúl calls from the stairs, standing on one step with Ariel and Randy already at the top, quietly slipping away into one of the two rooms there. "Come."

Lauren blindly leaves her cup on the counter and languidly crosses the house to join Raúl at the steps, following him up and into the room across from hers. It's an empty space with peeling walls semi-covered by posters of half-naked women and rappers, off-white square tiled floors, a single window overlooking the depressing front yard, and crates upon crates of firearms and heavy artillery pushed against a wall. Lauren freezes in the doorframe when she sees the only man in the room she doesn't know holding a one-year-old in a pair of arms that isn't the most secure, sitting on the plastic lawn chair placed in front of the window, in a far worse state than she was in.

"Who the fuck is this?" she slams the door behind her.

"My cousin. Found him nodding off by the gas station on the way here—had his baby with him in her car seat, the poor thing. I had to drag his ass with me before I take him home, I didn't want to keep you waiting," explains Randy, who is also way too tired to exorcise his anger.

"Are you for real?" Lauren, however, is not. Her footsteps are heavy when she approaches the addict, and she gives him a test slap to the face to see if he's responsive enough to communicate. "Despierta, puto. Oye! Mírame," she snaps her finger, garnering what little attention she could from him. (Wake up, asshole. Hey! Look at me.)

"Huh?" he drawls, barely keeping his eyes open. He tries to act as if he isn't high out of his mind. "Don't worry about me, I got it. I'm capable of taking care of my own daughter—I'm her father," he says at snail speed.