A Trap Within A Trap

Chapter 18

Waiting to be picked up from La Guardia Airport Jaquez stood out in the brutal New York winter wind to take in his  craved carcinogens with the other outcasts, all huddled together as cozy as strangers could get. Some wrapped in scarves, while others in hoodies. Shoulders up puffing their overdue dosages of death. They're reward for delayed patients thru long flights, anticipating to be granted the God given right to burn away portions of their lungs in peace, in the twelve below freezing weather.

Fish pulled up driving himself in a rented Lincoln looking like the middle aged man he wasn't. Driving alone to pick up the other up was the usual modus operandi for whenever one of them would comeback from coppin a lick, or making any other business moves. They needed to let each other know the sty; how much they got coming in, or just what was what back at the crib.

Fish sometimes played his self dressed like tonight, thinkin he was one of the OG's from the seventies. Pimped out like somebody out of Dolomite or some other Blaxploitation movie. Chinchila'd with the matching furry tall hat and, black and white thick pin stripped coat underneath. He was Lean'd way back one hand on the wheel, head lower than needed to be looking from under heavy brow and glowering as usual. He popped the trunk once up to the curb . Jaquez flicked the remains of his menthol cigarette sparking upon the windshield with a mischievous smile, and threw his luggage in. 

Within remained a biting chill, Fish hadn't cranked the heat up much since he had his pimp'd fur coat on. The air could be seen flowing from them both in the frigid air. They didn't speak until they were on the highway. "She knows." Fish said without turning his head from the road. That was his way short and to the point, cryptic. You usually didn't get more than you needed from Fish when in his moods, and so it was best to figure the rest out on your own. If you had questions then you was just ass'd out.

Omari is what he was talking about Jaquez knew. The longer you knew him, the quicker you'd figure things out, and even learn what he was communicating between the lines that he didn't mean you to know. We grew up on the same block, but since he was older we weren't in the same clicks. He was a few grades ahead of me. 

We knew each other from around the way, and played in the same games around the neighborhood. We started hanging out as kids after he caught me fuckin his girl, so we had to scrap. I was younger than him but still scarred him for his girl, and he was extra hot. It was an even fight tho. I beat him down bad cuz he got me so pissed I blacked out. I got mad props cuz I showed heart fighting "Big Fish", the big bully from around the way. For some reason after that we became friends.

His mother wasn't all that involved in his life, and he didn't know his father. He had a new dude in his mother's bed to deal with almost every year. He'd be pushed into treating them like a father and calling them dad, even tho they never put in the work. My parents paid for him to join the boy scouts and local basketball teams with me, to be involved in some positivity. But what they didn't know was that he was doing them the same favor on the other side of life, showing me the ropes of surviving in the streets.

He'd been stayin out in the streets till morning, ever since he was just out of diapers. He showed me how to rob old ladies or jack a cars, and I'd show him how to sing from the book of hymns in church, and tutor him with his school work. In most ways Fish was faster than I was in his thinking, but since his options seemed so limited from the time he was little he had to narrow his focus on what he specifically wanted out of life. See, you can't live and die only eating, breathing, living only your way. You gotta have the bad to respect the good. You live in that one shade of life, you'll die in that life. Trust, there are people caught in the good boring life doin the same ole shit Monday to Sunday all they life that really would appreciate it if somebody would do them a favor and put a bullet in their dome, just like the scary stressed out doh boy sleeping with the Mac 10 under his pillow, sweatin the footsteps at his front door every night.