College Fiend [A$AP Rocky]

Fourteen

In the morning I woke up frustrated.

The sun was too bright, for one. Light poured in from all around me—left and right, behind me and in front of me. And the bed I lay on had no sheets; it wasn’t even a bed, just the leather seats of the car pushed together to make what looked like a bed. It was the best a camper van could give, I guessed. Still, I needed comfort and there were no sheets around.

When I got up to look for sheets, I almost fell backward due to a bump the driver carelessly crossed.

“Hey, can you slow down?” I shouted at him.

“Sorry about that,” Quincy looked back and smiled. Seeing his face made the memories of last night flood back. I sat in the bed with my knees to my chest, just a little bit embarrassed for yelling at him like that. I didn’t know him that way. As I remembered what happened last night, I thought about the train. If I had just jumped it like I planned, I would be thrown off at most. But here, anything could happen. Quincy could kill me right now if he wanted.

But he wouldn’t. Hopefully.

We pulled over suddenly, swerving to the side of the road and almost knocking into a tree. Quincy turned off the car, took off his seatbelt, and climbed into the back of the car with me.

“Where are we?” I asked. He sat across from me, his head against the window on his side.

“Still in Alabama,” Quincy replied.

“Look, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but we’ve been driving all night. It really shouldn’t take us this long to get to Mississippi.” I remarked. He didn’t say anything in response, only chuckled, briefly and silently. I was beginning to notice that Quincy laughed at things that weren’t meant to be funny. He flashed a deliberate smile before leaning over to the dashboard to fetch something. When he brought it back to the bed, I noticed it was a rolled-up joint of marijuana.

I looked out both windows for any sign of the police; weed wasn’t legal, and I didn’t want to give anybody signs that it was being smoked.

Quincy dug in his pocket for a lighter, and when he found it, he lit the joint carefully, and then put it in between his lips to smoke. I watched him as he puffed with his eyes closed and his back slumped against the window, relaxed as ever while my heart was jumping hurdles. I already had trouble with the police, and he could bring me some more if we got caught.

“You wouldn’t know we were driving all night,” He began, “because you were asleep.”

I expected him to say more, but he stopped there, not even bothering to open his eyes and look at me. I didn’t know if it was only when he was high or if this was all the time, but Quincy’s attitude was proving to be a bit annoying.

“So when do you plan on taking me to Mississippi, if I may ask?”

Finally, he opened his eyes. “You may not.” I had to fight not to gasp. “Have you ever heard of the coin-matching game?”

If I could, I’d spit in Quincy’s face and storm out of the van. But it was my only shelter for now, my only safety. He knew that, and he was using it against me. I nodded and swallowed.

“Good; that’ll make this easy.” Quincy crawled closer to me, just meeting my outstretched legs, and sat up straight. “We are going to play the coin-matching game.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so. Anyway, this is how it will go. We’ll head over to the Laundromat a few miles down. I’ll drop you off a block away from there, and then I’ll go by myself. I’ll throw something to you when I want you to come to the Laundromat, so look out for it. Anyway, when you come, you will find me playing the coin-matching game with some random person. You have to walk up to us and say, ‘hey, that looks fun, can I play?’ At that point I’ll explain the rules of the game to you, and you will join in, but then leave for a brief moment to go and use the Laundromat’s bathroom. When you come back, you will lose the game and threaten to call the police and tell them that me and the random person are smoking. Once you do that, we’ll give you hush money. Whatever price we offer, you raise it as much as possible. When we pay you, take the money and meet me back at this spot. Got it?”