The Second Doublewide on the Right (part four)

I’m Fixin’ to present part four of The Second Doublewide on the Right.

Quantavious Cortez Carter’s outlaw days began when he was in his last year of middle school, when the Mexicans had started to populate the area and he became friends with Mendoza, who always seemed to have cash in his pocket. Quantavious was determined to find out how his Mexican amigo managed this, and once he did it changed his life from being destitute to never being without money in his pocket.

The secrets of his success was that he took his friend’s advice and never used the weed, only sold it, and he also studied the habits of the ones who got caught and alienated himself from those habits until he had gotten out of high school.

He didn’t do any direct business anymore, he had graduated to a level where he arranged for the delivery of illegal goods between different organizations, for which he was paid a hefty fee. He never kept any illegal drugs on his person, in his car or his trailer. He knew the law; being caught with less than an ounce of weed was a misdemeanor punishable by a fine and probation, while being caught with over an ounce was a felony charge of possession with intent to distribute, and could get you some jail time.

Quantavious drove the hour long trip to Atlanta several times a week to do his business. He lived in the Shady Grove trailer park in Apt-To-Miss, in order to keep a low profile and because it was near where he had grown up. He had strict rules he lived by because he had a long range goal. His was a lonely job most of the time, but heck, he had a boatload of cash in a bank in Decatur, on the east side of Atlanta. Pretty soon he expected to have enough to fulfill his dream.

The only things he indulged himself in were his ride, his gold, and occasionally, the company of young ladies.

If fact there were two young ladies in his trailer right now, waiting for him to bring them the food he had picked up from that white girl who ran the restaurant up on the strip mall, who could cook food like his grandma. He supposed that was why they called it Granny’s Kitchen.

He had called and placed his order and gone to the restaurant early so he wouldn’t run into anyone else, but that sleazy old slumlord, Leon, had come in just as he had been leaving. If he had come in a minute earlier he would have seen him pass Miss Candy Sue’s tip to her.

It had been a couple of doobies that the two young ladies had left laying out from last night. He didn’t keep any drugs at his place and he wanted to get rid of them, plus Miss Candy Sue had hinted around that she would like a little something.

What he wanted to do was feed the girls and spend some quality time with them before taking them back to Atlanta, but he wanted to wait until after dark to do that because so far he didn’t think anyone had seen him with them and wanted to keep it that way.

While observing them sleeping this morning, they had both looked so much like two little brown angels, that he had become suspicious they were a little younger than he had originally thought. He had found them in a club, but that didn’t mean anything, anybody could get into one of them.

What he was concerned about was that he knew he could get himself nailed if they were under age. The law would lock you up for that quicker than they would for selling dope. He would be glad when it got dark and he could haul them back to Atlanta.

The smell of the food from the to-go boxes came wafting up and he suddenly realized how hungry he was. But he suspected he wasn’t any more hungry than—he had to stop and think to remember their names, then it came to him. Sherika and Jernika, yeah, that was them. They were twins, and the only way he could tell them apart was that Sherika had a tattoo on the side of her neck. It was an eyeball with a pink iris. Freaked him out the first time he noticed it.

He turned off Ocmulgee County Road 86 onto the road leading into the trailer park and passed Leon’s big doublewide. There was another big doublewide on the right just past Leon’s, which was vacant. He had thought about moving into it because of it being big, but it was right up front, and he liked being in the back with nothing but the woods back behind him. He had some food, a pistol, some clothes and even some cash stashed back there in those woods, in case he ever had to make a run for it.

Quantavious cringed when he passed the first singlewide, and kept his eyes straight ahead when he saw Deputy Sheriff Murphy pulling out in his patrol car. He figured he was heading up to the restaurant to get something to eat because it was about 45 minutes before his shift went on duty.

He knew exactly when the deputy’s shift began and when he went off duty, and he usually departed the trailer park while he was on duty and returned well after he was home in bed. The other thing he knew was that Murphy was gunning for him.

Quantavious found himself wishing it would hurry up and fixing to be dark.