Wolf Tickets

     The density of the heavy air was difficult to breathe, leaving Lil Cee in a sea of foggy light-headedness. He gasps for relief, but grows fearful as the pressure in his chest cavity increases with each forced breath. Sweat beads the skin of his forehead causing the short dread-locks crawling from under the black cotton skull cap to stick to him with each back-and-forth toss of his head. 

     Gradually, radiating heat is felt on his upturned face. The light causing it is blocked out by closed eyelids, like dark blinds on bay windows. Lil Cee tries the simple act of blinking, but the muscles controlling his voluntary eye movements refuse to respond. His body tentatively tells his brain, that something is terribly wrong, as deep throbbing next to his eye socket starts pulsating in tune to his rapid heartbeat. 

     With his eyes still closed, Lil Cee tests the rest of the motor mechanics of his body parts, starting with his toes and feet. Fibers twitch, muscles contract, and limbs move. 

     "Look! That nigga's alive!" someone yells flooding his ears with sound, and kick-starting his brain. 

     As if electrified, Lil Cee's body jack-knifes into a sitting position. The weight dissolves from his chest and the air's new lighter density floods his starved lungs, filling them to capacity. He greedily sucks in even more, then exhales just as loudly. 

     Using gentle finger tip touches, Lil Cee probes his face looking for the source of the consistent throbbing. Stumbling upon and pressing the swollen tender skin around his eye causes pain intense enough for nausea to threaten the purge of his stomach contents.        

     His fingers come away slick and sticky. Lil Cee forces his eyes open when he smells the handful-of-pennies scent of his own blood.

     A crowd of black faces surround him, and the memory of the lost section of time reappears in his mind like a rewound tame.    

     "I'm good! I'm good! I don't want anymore," Lil Cee screams. then grimaces in pain at the loudness of his own voice. 

   

   The silhouette of the small Mexican shaking his injured hand, fades into his shadowy peripheral as the black faces return bringing joyous ridicule.

     "Nigga, you got knocked the fuck out," one says. 

     "That Mexican whooped your ass," yelled another. 

     Lastly, "I knew someone was gonna buy those wolf tickets," echoed in Lil Cee's head before passing back out. 

     Lil Cee regained consciousness in his own bed with the Rose Bowl parade going full steam in his head. The throbbing of his eye socket was being soothed by what felt like a cool rag, so when vision was funneled out of only one eye, he assumed the rag was blocking the other. He closed his eyes and used the rag to wipe his face. Lil Cee opened them again to the same result. Panic slowly coursed through his veins as realization set in that he would have to face the rest of the inmates with his eye swollen shut.

     "Ice. I need ice," he said out loud to himself, but even trying to climb down the bunk slowly intensified the pain from the marching band in his skull. 

     On unsteady legs, he reached an arm out to use the wall for support. With each step, the slap of his bare feet on the concrete sent vibrations up his spinal cord. The urge to succumb to the pain grew greater as the distance to the door lessened, but it was still nothing compared to the embarrassment of everyone now knowing that he couldn't fight.     

     Lil Cee leaned against the door frame and looked out, with one eye, at all the inmates in the dayroom. Some mean-mugged, a few blacks, in shared embarrassment, avoided eye contact, but more often then not, they just looked and shook their head in pity.