Slithering through Paradise

The cockroaches in her apartment were strung out on dope. Big Bee would shoot around $50 bucks worth of dope at a time (1980's prices), so when she set her spoon on the floor and fell out, if you were a roach with a habit it was worth your time to scurry over and suck on the cotton.
I saw a roach OD in her place one time. I guess there are worse ways to go, but it's not much of a funeral when your extended family gathers around you to bite your head off and suck out your dope soaked guts.
Don't do drugs kids, stay in school.
Big Bee was a legend because she had been a legend since the 60's, and she always had the best dope. In the Berzerkeley scene at that time, those were the two requirements. Also, the roach thing was widely known, so that helped to keep her legendary name being whispered in all the right social circles.
I was only 18, but I was working on my million dollar arm so I would deliver bags for her. She had a real good fake prescription thing running too, so I would pick up Tussinex at the drug stores for her also. She trusted me for some reason and I never fucked it up, so I did a lot of things for her.

One night I had come back with some highly questionable fried chicken from the Korean all night store and saw the Legend with one of her giant tits in her hand, stabbing at it with a rig full of bloody dope. She had no veins left anywhere else so she had to poke around in her tits until she found one there.
She was sweating for a long time before she found a vein and got well. It was hard to watch, mostly because she had just gotten some real China White and she hadn't given me any yet. After I hit mine and had my chin on my chest with all the angels singing my name, she pulled out a photo album.
Shit, I didn't know she had a fucking photo album.
She waved me over, so I went and sat next to her on the greasy mattress, and she started turning pages.
Old Kodak prints had the month and year on the bottom corner. Even Baby Bee looked very big. but as a teen she was beautiful. Really, just fine as hell.
We got just past the graduation pics, and that's when shit got real strange. Because In 1964, she was a Nun. Not the full on kind yet, she hadn't taken the final vows and married Jesus.
But still. Jesus Christ, a fucking Nun???
She was wearing the costume with the little hat and everything. Surrounded by some very serious looking full on Nuns. But the old full on Nuns were white. Big Bee was black. All her little junior nun sisters were black. It just looked weird. But it was Oakland.
More pictures of Nuns in the community.
And then the last few pages were blank.
I guess every photo album has that last envelope full of ugly cousins and blurry vacation photos. The pictures that don't make it on the pages. She started pulling out those pictures. Those pictures had dates from 1968 to 1969 on the bottom corner.
Bee is easy to spot because she is over 6 foot tall, has a huge set of teeth, and enormous tits.
And there she was, surrounded by bikers. Real ones. I wont say which club. She had her arm around some scabby looking beard grower, looking really high.
She pointed out her old man, scab guy, and said she met him while she was serving the local community with her sisters.
Love can't be explained. It was clear he was a project boyfriend though.
I was almost too shocked to ask her what the fuck happened.
She just laughed at me, and all she said was,
" the sixties happened".