Crouching Gangster, Flowering Quince

Chapter Three

It feels amazing.

I don't know how I did it or why it happened, but all I thought about last night when I walked home was the fact that it was over for me before it even began. My legs were taking me in a direction that I wanted them to go, not where my dumb friends were trying to take me. I was walking, alive and well and standing up straight. I was alone.

And I didn't even have to see any dead bodies.

While basking in the glory of my sweet escape, I forgot to walk on the main roads like Currency told me to. The street I left Kenneth on was a main road and I made the decision to start avoiding him at all costs. His wise-man vibe and ambiguous style of speaking was creepy. When I got home, I thought about why Currency told me to walk that way. If they really did mess everything up with their inexperience and conspicuousness, they'd be relying on a witness to say that they saw me alone that night. When Max is by himself, the others are by themselves. It's an easy cop-out.

Hopefully, they won't need it.

It's seven o'clock in the morning. Ma is in the shower. She has work in thirty minutes, and it takes her ten minutes to eat breakfast and twenty to get to Kings Plaza. It makes sense, give or take a few minutes, but her pay is always being docked for tardiness. There have been times when I was younger that I'd try to figure out why she was always being fired from every job she had, and she probably hasn't noticed that I'm not the same naive little kid anymore. Anyone can take one look at her and chalk it up as her stopping three blocks away from the Sears she works at to pop some pills.

Just because I know what it can be doesn't mean that I think that's what it is. There are plenty reasons why she could possibly be doing drugs-she sweats too much, she's underweight, she's always being secretive, she has mood swings, and she's always telling me what to do after she dies. But there's only one reason why she most likely isn't using-because she's my mom.

And there's no way that she went from the loving, graceful, church-going lady to a junkie in the span of seventeen years.

"Max, what are you going to do today?" She comes out of the shower with her towel wrapped around her chest.

"I don't know." I shrug, still staring at the TV. The bill isn't paid, but there's something hypnotic about staring at my reflection on a black screen.

"Well figure it out," She says. "Because if you're going to stay in the house all day, then I have to leave food for you."

I think about it for a moment. It's hot outside and heat always brings sweat, bugs and shoot-outs. But it also brings girls, basketball and good times, so there isn't much to complain about. On top of that, I want to see the boys. I need to know what happened last night. I need to know if they're good.

"I'll leave in a half hour." I tell her finally. She goes into her room, comes out with a twenty-dollar bill, and drops it on the coffee table.

"Be careful."

11:00 AM

It takes me two hours to convince myself to leave.

I mean, I do want to go-I'm a black teenager who just graduated high school and it's 85 degrees outside. Why wouldn't I want to go?

Despite that, there are still doubts. Still reasons that make me hesitate every time I take another step toward the door.

All I need to do is look at the envelope sitting on the ledge in the hallway, and there goes all my enthusiasm to step outside of this house.

After ten or eleven internal (and sometimes external) battles with myself to walk out of the door, I finally decide what to do. I open the fridge and take out a gallon of water. I leave the house with it and my twenty dollars.