I walked a little bit faster and went ahead of my friend. I didn’t look at him. I shrugged off his comment. “Whatever bro, I know enough. I know I love Christy and she’s the girl that I want to marry.” I said to my friend as I walked past him.

I have no idea why I was walking faster than him, it’s not like I knew where I was going, I didn’t know where Joe’s house was at. I thought about it and shook my head. I started to slow my pace down as we approached an intersection, I didn’t know whether we were going to keep walking straight, or turn right or left. I slowed down and let Jerry take the lead, Jerry looked both ways before he crossed the street, and then he kept walking straight.

“Whatever bruh, do you.” Jerry finally said to me as me and him finished crossing the street. I was actually glad that Jerry said that. I didn’t want him, or anybody to try to talk me out of this. This is something that I wanted, it was right for me, I just knew it. Christy was the girl for me!

Jerry put his earphones back in his ears and he pulled out his phone to turn on the music and then he made a right when we arrived at a stop sign, I followed him.

“I LOVE EM THICK AND REDDD!!” Jerry said as a smile appeared on his face, he was singing along to a song he was listening to. I looked at him and started laughing. My friend was doing some sort of strange dance as he was walking, in which he bobbed his head and did some weird movement with his legs. I looked at him and laughed. He looked ridiculous. Jerry always did that though, so I wasn’t surprised. I was used to him now singing along to the music he was listening to and bobbing his head.

We then approached to a certain block with apartment houses that was on top of an inclining hill, I could see a basketball court on the other side of the street. There was actually people playing on it, I thought that to be very strange. It was like 6:45am in the morning, who could be playing basketball early in the morning like this? I brushed off the thought. Only in Philadelphia I thought to myself, I smiled to myself. We then went under a tree, Jerry pulled out his iPhone from his pocket, he then made a call and removed his earphones and put the phone to his ear. He didn’t say anything, I suspected that he was waiting for Joe to pick up.

After a few seconds Joe finally picked up. “Yo bruh, we here.” Jerry said over the phone.

“What you want us to do?” Jerry said again to Joe over the phone. He listened for a few seconds and then he said “okay”, and then he hung up.

“Come on.” Jerry said to me as he started walking in a certain direction. I followed behind him. We walked to one of the apartment houses on top of the hill. We headed towards a BLICO basement door at the side of one of the houses. Jerry opened it and he entered it, I followed behind him.

“Close the door behind you bruh.” Jerry said to me as he removed his earphones from underneath his shirt and opened up his backpack and placed them in there. I did what he said and closed the basement door behind me, then I followed him down the stairs and we descended.

The bottom of the basement was very small. There was a sink in the far corner and a few rooms. There was also a bathroom with the door wide open at the corner. There was a funny stench coming from the bathroom, I didn’t quite know what it was, but whatever it was, I didn’t like it.

The whole basement was dark when we got down, I couldn’t see anything. “YO BRUH!” Jerry said out loud, I didn’t know if he was either talking to me or himself. Jerry talked to himself at times. I found it to be very spooky and awkward but I’ve gotten used to it over the years. It was really bad when he was younger in elementary school. He would often have an entire conversation with himself at class, nobody would sit next to him, except for me, I had to put up with it because he was my friend. I just kept on eating my Chicken Patty sandwich as he kept yammering to himself, at times he would even yell out loud, but it was very seldom that he did that. I was getting ready to ask my friend if he was talking to me or himself? Then a weak voice came from one of the rooms. “Over here bruh.” Joe’s voice came along. It sounded very drowsy, as if he had just woken up. Jerry walked in the direction of the voice, I followed behind him.

Joe was sitting down on a dirty mattress that was laid out on the floor, he already had the blunt in his mouth smoking.

“THIS JAWN STINK!” Jerry said as he walked in the room. He was exclaiming about the foul odor that was coming from the room in which we just walked in, and he wasn’t lying, it definitely did not smell pleasant. It smelled similar to the bathroom that was out in the hallway. I still couldn’t figure out what that smell was. I started thinking about it again, but to no avail.

“Bro keep your voice down, my peoples upstairs sleeping.” Joe said to Jerry, in a low tone of voice letting him know that this was the volume that his voice had to be at when he was down here.

“My fault bro.” Jerry said to Joe as he sat down next to him. Joe passed Jerry the blunt and he took a hit. I wiped the dirty mattress with my foot a little bit and then I sat down next to Joe.

Joe reached up with his hand and then he yanked a string down and a bright light came on. Finally! I thought to myself. I don’t like the darkness; I don’t like not seeing. I looked at Joe. He must’ve just woken up, there was a black line under his eyes, and they were really low. I couldn’t tell whether or not that was because he had just woken up, or because he was really high. He was already fully dressed for school, he had a hoodie on with a polo shirt underneath, and he was wearing some skinny jeans.

“You think we gon be late?” Jerry asked Joe as he passed me the blunt. He was asking him if whether or not he thought that we were gon be late for home period in school.

“We shouldn’t be, it’s only like 6:55am, we gon dip at like 7:25.” Joe said to Jerry, assuring him.

Joe then reached in his pocket and pulled out another dime bag, he opened it up and he grabbed a ginder that was laying on top of the bed and he put the weed inside of it and began to grind it up.

“Bro, lemme get a bag, I’ma give you the bread at lunch today when I get change.” I said to Joe. I was asking him to give me dime bag, I had to go over to Christy’s house later on today, and I definitely didn’t want to be sober when I’m over there.

Joe reached in his pocket and pulled out a bag and threw it to me. I grabbed it, put the blunt in my mouth for safety as I reached for my book bag to the side of me.

“You got another wrap?” I asked him.

I wanted to know if whether or not he had a spare blunt wrap so he could give it to me. He reached to the side of the mattress and grabbed an open blunt wrap and threw it to me. I grabbed it and put it in my book bag along with the dime bag.

“You gon blow that down after school today?” Joe asked me. He wanted to know if I was going to smoke that bag later on after school today.

I put the wrap in my bag and took the blunt from my mouth, I took a drag and held the smoke in for a few seconds, then I exhaled it out slowly.

“Yeah, I gotta go to Christy’s house later on today after school and I def ain’t trying be sober.” I said to Joe. I was letting him know that the reason why I wanted the dime bag was because I was going to go over to Christy’s house later on today and smoke it with her.

Joe looked at me and smiled. “Nu uh, the short Rican jawn with the fat butt?” Joe asked me. He wanted to know which Christy I was referring to. I let him know that his suspicion was correct. I nodded my head and smiled back. I then took another hit of the blunt and passed it to him. Joe shook my hand before he took the blunt.

“It’s about time.” He said. “You don’t peep the way she be looking at you?” Joe said to me as he took the blunt from my hand. Apparently there was a certain way that Christy often looked at me that I wasn’t aware of.

“Naww.” I said in reply to him.

“Bro you dumb; I would’ve been hit.” Joe again said to me.

Joe took three quick hits of the blunt then he passed it to Jerry, and he took the grinded up marijuana that was in the grinder and he lightly dumped it inside of the dutch that was on top of his legs.

“You gon spark up with her?” He asked me as he began to roll up the dutch.

“That’s the plan.” I told him.

Joe placed the dutch on his lips and he began to roll it.

“I walked past DuLi while going home yesterday and me and him was blowing down this one jawn, idk the name of it but I was FRIED! Now I just wanna be high all the time.” I said to Joe and laughed a little bit. I was letting him know that the reason why I wanted to smoke with Christy later on today was because I walked past Abdul yesterday and me and him was smoking something, and whatever it was it had me so high, and now I just want to always be high.

“It was probably that green crack, he put me on it a few months ago.” Jerry said to me. He suspected that the strand of marijuana that me and Abdul was smoking was maybe this famous strand called “green crack”, he was saying that he also was smoking it with him a few months ago and he really liked it.

“You think so?” I looked at Jerry and asked him.

“Yeah bruh, it had to be!” Jerry replied to me.

Joe didn’t say anything. His hands began to tremble and a darkness covered his face. He readjusted the way that he was sitting.

“ABDUL’S A GREAT FELLOW AND HE’S REALLY SMART!” Joe said out loud.

Next Page