Page 2 of Bear
“You don’t always have to be so fucking uptight, Bear. Joelle is good now. She got her head straight. Plus Dad was just scaring me the last time anyway. You know how over the top he is.” I didn’t say anything because it was clear to me that Hawk wanted to fuck Joelle more than he wanted to do his damn job. “What did you come back here for anyway?” He quizzed.
“Some of the girls are smoking around the product. I tried to tell them to stop but they wouldn’t listen to me.” I shoved my hands in my pockets and leaned against the wall. Hawk nodded and walked onto the floor.
I peeked around him to see Joelle laughing and talking with the chick that offered to fuck me if I kept my mouth shut. Nothing about that looked good. I nudged Hawk and he brushed me off with a scowl.
“Stop worrying so fucking much, Bear.” He snapped his fingers at the women and said, “Yo, y’all bitches need to get back to work. You don’t get fucking lunch breaks over here.” They scattered and I watched their curvy bodies jiggling and sighed heavily.
I spent the rest of the day in my thoughts. Hawk and Wolf always said I stayed in my head too much. I rarely spoke but when I did, I was always telling them how they were fucking up.
It was true though.
Hawk was too busy chasing after girls and Wolf was too busy trying to impress Dad by being stupid and reckless.
“Hey, count that last batch up for me so we can go home and take Dad his shit.” Hawk tossed me a black garbage bag full of heroin baggies and I sighed as I dug in. I liked going to the warehouse with my brother but after catching him with Joelle I was starting to think he brought me along because he knew I liked doing the work and I always got the count right.
There should have been 315 bags from the bricks the girls chopped up earlier. It was the last batch of the day and the first one Dad would send out to his soldiers tonight. I counted it once and came up 15 bags short. My brows crashed together and I counted them again, the second time I moved slower and counted out loud.
“Come on lil bro, Dad is already biting my head off about being late with his heroin.” I looked up at Hawk and shook my head with a frown.
“We can’t go home like this, Hawk.”
“Why the fuck not? He swept his hand across the table and moved all the baggies into the garbage bag then dragged it off the table.
“The count,” I said watching Hawk stare at the new Sidekick phone he got a few weeks ago. For someone who loved the perks of the job, he sure hated doing the work. “Yo, are you listening?” I asked him.
“Yeah. I heard you. Let’s go before Dad starts bitching.” I followed him to the car and waited until he started driving before I told him the count was off. At least he wasn’t staring at his damn phone.
“The count is off,” I said.
“For what?” He laughed.
“The heroin. We’re fifteen bags short.”
“I’ll tell him the brick weight was off. Boom, problem solved.”
“Nah, Hawk. You need to call your girl. Dad shot you last time the count was off. You think he won’t do it again?” I wasn’t expecting Hawk to laugh at me the way he did. I wasn’t the one who got shot.
“Bear, you’re twelve. Why the fuck do you worry so much? You’re supposed to be playing outside and shit. Dad has your head all fucked up in the game. You’re too young to worry about heroin counts being off. I think I’m gonna leave you home next time. You should be out there making stupid choices and having crushes on girls.”
“You’re seventeen and you’re still making stupid choices and chasing girls so what does age matter?” I asked as I played with the solid gold custom Zippo lighter dad gave me for my twelfth birthday. He told me to hold on to it. That I’d need it one day. It was fly as fuck with a roaring grizzly bear engraved into the shiny gold front. My name was engraved on the back.
“You’re like an old man in a little kid’s body. That shit is creepy, Bear.”
“Whatever. Your count is off. You’re going to get shot again if Dad finds out Joelle took drugs.”
“She didn’t take any fucking thing, okay? I told you she’s good now.”
“I saw her talking to one of Dad’s fairies.”
“Fairies?” Hawk chuckled then turned onto our street. We lived in the biggest house in the neighborhood at the top of a slight hill. My stomach knotted when I saw Dad’s Monte Carlo in the driveway. “You still call those bitches fairies, Bear?” Hawk asked.
“You know what I mean. Your girlfriend was talking to one of them. How do you know the girl didn’t slide her something? How do you know Joelle didn’tstealsomething then smile in the girls’ faces while she walked out with pockets full of heroin?”
“Bear, shut the fuck up, okay? You worry too much. Go in the house. I’ll talk to Dad.” He put the car in park and I took a few more seconds to look at him. My chest felt tight and my head throbbed. I couldn’t explain it though. I was bad at saying what was going on in my mind.
I tried to beg Hawk to talk to Joelle about the missing drugs but I ended up glaring at him for being so stupid over his girlfriend. I went into the house and walked past my little brother, Wolf then went upstairs.
Down the hall, I saw a light on in the guest room. I slowed down and looked around before heading toward it. I wondered if Mrs. Luanne was inside. She stayed with us when Dad had to go out of town. I knocked on the door and listened for her voice. “Come in.” The voice didn’t belong to Mrs. Luanne. It was much smaller. Curiosity got the best of me so I pushed the door open and went inside.
