Page 18 of In Too Deep

“These mothafucka’s ain’t eatin’ you up,” he frowned, slapping his caramel colored arm.

“You probably have some sweet blood,” I responded. It’s a Southern thing to say if mosquitoes constantly bite you. No one is ever allergic to mosquitoes, so it’s common to say if it happens often.

He chuckled, his hand balled up into a fist over his mouth as he went into a laughing fit.

“You sound like my granny.”

“How long do you think he’ll be?” I inquired, wanting him to pause the comedic shit.

He gave me a sadistic side eye. “Freight ain’t never on time, but he’s on the way. I ain’t gone steer you wrong. His ETA is ten minutes away.”

For assurance, he pulled out an Android and went to Telegram, showing me the message that confirmed what he had already told me.

“You look stiff as hell. You need to hit this blunt and relax.”

The pre-rolled vanilla Dutch reeked. He put the blunt to his mouth and inhaled before passing it over to me for me to takeit. I placed my hand on his wrist and moved it away from me, frowning in disgust like I was allergic.

“No thank you.”

“Mean ass,” he muttered.

We leaned against the trunk of a Toyota Camry, the car I had rented from Enterprise.

“Can I ask you a question?”

Glancing over at me, he nodded his head while squinting his eyes, taking another pull from his blunt.

“You just did.”

“Are you always this childish?”

“Are you always this stuck up?” He mocked me in a girly tone, followed by a snicker.

Noticing that I wasn’t laughing, he motioned with his hand for me to ask the question.

“You sell guns and do other shit, why’d you put me on to this?”

Exhaling, he blew clouds of smoke in the opposite direction. “Why not?”

“There has to be a reason.”

“No other reason besides, I know you like to get money and you ain’t no chicken shit ass bitch. Plus, it’s enough money for everybody else to get some. I can’t keep it all to myself.”

“You ever thought doing anything else besides this?” I asked something more seriously.

I had these questions with myself a lot, when sleep wouldn’t come over me. I’d be facing darkness, with the sheets sprawled across my naked body. The light from my flat screen television would be illuminating throughout the room, and I’d be forced to think deeply about what lay ahead for me. People do it a lot—scammers too. Surely, I am not the only individual striving towards aspirations while facing adversity, without considering short-term gains and jotting down long term goals in a notepad.

Allen is smart as hell. It takes a person with brains to scam. Street sense is one thing, and common sense is another.

“Naw.”

He side eyed me again. The ashes from the tip of the blunt fell on a small puddle of water between us.

“I don’t think that far ahead. I think for the moment. I don’t like to cloud my mind with setting goals. Scamming is more than a hustle. It’s a lifestyle. When I hit my first lick, I never went into it trying to escape from something. The goal is to never go broke. Working at Kroger is a fuckin’ decoy. I don’t have to do it, but it keep the Feds off my back, and I move stealth enough not to ever get caught. You don’t ever ask a nigga like me what their plans are because they don’t matter. I was born on this earth to get money, fuck bitches, and die.”

“That’s a fucked up way of thinking, Allen.”

“It don’t matter. If I died today, I’d be ten million dollars richer than I was last week. What about you?”

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