The Ghetto

Friday

Jahlil POV

Friday, that one word could make any student jump for joy simply because it ended a school week.

The moment I stepped foot on campus I was ready to leave. Everyone was loud and rambunctious, everyone except me of course. The day dragged horribly, in Spanish II Ms. Torres was energetic but I just wasn't feeling it, so I put my head down the whole class period. Five minutes into the class period I was sound asleep and Briante had to wake me up. I woke with a jump.

"Cloud, nigga wake up its time to go. " My mouth opened widely and yawned. "Man I'm ready to leave." I said my voice dragging. I tried to get up from my desk but my legs gave out from under me. Luckily Briante was there to hold my weight. "Cloud you good? You seem like you didn't get enough sleep" He said. "Well when you get fired from your job I don't think you'd be in the best of moods." We walked out of class and went our separate ways. After entering AP LIT I proceeded to pull out my pen and paper to do my bell work when Mrs. Madden called me to her desk. "Jahlil come here for a second." She called out. "What's up Mrs. Madden?"I asked calmly. "Jahlil you're failing already and we just started school what's going on?". "Well shit fire!" I thought to myself. "Well, I began but stopped shortly after." My mind was racing through a million excuses to give when I just decided to tell the truth. "I haven't been on top of my game Mrs. Madden things haven't been going well, but I'll pick it up."

"You need to because I don't think your parents would be very happy with this grade.". "Yes ma'am you're right." She dismissed me and I returned to my desk. When Mrs. Madden gave out the assignment I groaned way louder than I meant to. She looked at me as if I'd grown a second head then continued explaining the assignment.

Finally the be had rang, and I hurriedly walked out of class before Mrs. Madden could call me back. I walked into AP U.S. History calmly and took my seat half ready for our weekly class discussion half sleepy and ready to cuss anyone out who looked at me funny. Mr. Harrington walked in called roll and made a corny joke before he called out to the class "Okay class today is discussion day." So its time to assess everything you've learned this week in class and from the primary source packet I have you all on Tuesday". Everything he'd said after that was a blur. My head was spinning, jumping all over the place, when Mr. Harrington called my name "Jahlil". My heart started racing he'd frightened me. "Tell me..." he began "what do you think about Columbus' s motives were for heading out west to find India". I thought for a moment. "Columbus had a few motives one was to prove that the world was not as big as scientist thought, he thought it was flat and that if you head straight across the world you'd hit the Indies in no time, but he didn't count on hitting a giant continent in the middle of the planet. Assuming it was the West Indies he went looking for spices but never found any only Native Americans".

"Perfect!" He exclaimed. Then he went on to someone else to ask them a question. When the class ended I dragged myself down the stairs to Theatre where all I did was play on my phone ask class period because our teacher still wasn't at school. "Wow she missed the whole week says alot about her". 11:20 the bell rang for lunch and instead of going off campus I headed to the lunch room where I found Kaitlyn and Lay. "Jahlil you okay?" Lay asked, " You look terrible" she said. I had the blankest gaze in my eyes before I finally answered and said yeah I'm okay. I got fired yesterday though. "What!" Kaitlyn asked enraged "What happened?" I walked in yesterday the manager called me in his office and laid me off. "Well that's bullshit" Kaitlyn said. "So what now?" She asked a moment later." By then my mind was off into another dimension thinking what was another way I could make money until I could find another job. Before I knew it lunch ended then AVID ended then Pre-Calculus ended.

My rang twice before I could dig it out of my pocket to answer it.

"Yo" I said snoothly into the device.
Desmond's voice came through loud and excited "Since you don't have shit else to do today you wanna go watch this fight at the park?" I gave my phone a funny look when I realized he couldn't see my face. "No Desmond you need to come to the car we're going home." I called Briante to find out where he was but he didn't answer.

When Desmond entered the car he was angry we couldn't go to the fight so he got in quiet with his face frowned up and slammed the door. "What the hell wrong with you boy, slamming my damn door like you fucking crazy, I should make yo ass walk home since you wanna act like you ain got no common sense!"
He looked startled mainly because I never snap on anyone. "Jahlil why we couldn't go to the fight man, you just gotta be the lame ass that never has any fun!" He yelled. "Desmond we ain't finna stereotyped as ghetto just because we're walking in a big crowd of people yelling and talking about a fight that's about to go down. Just because we live in the ghetto don't mean we gotta act like it, besides what if somebody got a gun what then?" He couldn't answer he knew I was right so he just sat there quiet until we got home.

Later on that night Desmond came in and apologized for his behavior earlier. "Its alright man I'm just trying to keep you safe." I said. Bet he replied then he exited my room. I got a text from Briante, he told me he caught the bus home but he was going to need a ride Monday. Alright bet I replied. I took a shower and checked instagram to see what was popping but sadly nothing so i went ahead and fell asleep.