The Stick Up Kid

That Thing

A month later I was riding in the car with Jaliesha. For the past few weeks Raquan and I had been working for Ajax, doing several robberies a week. They weren’t big pay out jobs, but they kept money in my pocket.

            I had my seat leaning as far back as it could go, with a guar and marijuana on a CD case on my lap. Jaliesha was a slow driver so I’d probably be done rolling up by the time we reached the boost mobile store. When my girlfriend made a sharp turn at the light, the broken down weed on the CD case scattered all over the place.

            “Li-Li! What the fuck yo?” I fused, gathering as much of the crumbs as possible. I looked over at Jaliesha who had her phone out with king size smile on her face. She was doing more texting than driving; and she can hardly drive to begin with. “Yo get off yo fuckin’ phone man, look what you made me do!” I pointed to the wasted weed on the carpet floor. Jaliesha glanced down at the mess looking like she didn’t give damn.

            “It’ll be ight,” she shrugged, reverting her attention back to texting. I tightened my fist and pulled out another bag of weed. She was lucky my money’s better than it use to be. Had it been two months back, we would have had no weed and been out of luck.  

            I heard Jaliesha’s phone go off, and my nerves burned a little. “Hello?” she answered loudly. “Naw, I can talk. What up girl?”

            I held my tongue and continued to roll the blunt. By the time I finished it, we were pulling up to the boost mobile stand. I hopped out of the car and walked to the bootleg phone store. The sales associate named Janice leaned on the counter lazily.

            “Can I help you?” She asked, ignorantly smacking on a stick of gum.

            “Yea man, I wanna get this phone turned on,” I slid a new phone on the counter. Janice took one long look at me and knew the phone was stolen. She flipped it open, but the coded lock on it prevented her from getting full access to it.

            “You mind unlockin’ ‘yo’ phone?” she said sarcastically, handimg me the device.

            “Naw, you see. My moma gave me that phone, but she forgot the code to it. So imma need ya’ll to unlock it for me,” I lied. Janice leaned on the counter and blew a bubble directly in my face.

            “Mhmm,” she doubted. “I’ll be right back.” I watched her walk to the back and glanced at Jaliesha’s car. She was still in there talking on the phone; I could hear her loud voice from here.

            “Aye,” Janice shouted behind me. I spun around and saw her holding my phone. “Ight, what kind of plan you want?”

            “Unlimited everything; text, talk, and picture mail,” I told her.

            “Oh so you ballin’ huh?” She joked, walking back to the back. She returned shortly after and gave me phone. “That’s gon be $44.99.”

             I whipped out my wallet and handed her fifty dollars. After I got my change I went back to Jaliesha’s car and got in.

            “Done already?” Jaliesha asked me.

            I grabbed the blunt I rolled from the cup holder and slid it in my mouth. “Yea, we can gon’ back to the crib.”

            Jaliehsa started her car and swerved onto the road. I lit my blunt, inhaling the intoxicating smoke.  My girl turned on the car radio and put in a CD. That’s when I heard Jaliesha and me’s theme song, ‘So wet’ by Foxx. I knew something was up then.

            I looked over at Jaliesha who was grooving to the beat. She saw me staring at her and laughed lightly. I took another hit off the blunt, waiting for her to say what she wanted to say.

            “You remember that ‘thing’ we talked about last week,” she said. I glanced out of the window then back at her.

            “Which thing is that? We talk about a lots ‘things’…” I had an idea what she was talking about. I just wanted to drag it out.

            “ The, ‘mini-me’ thing,” she replied, smiling at me. I blew the smoke out of my lungs and nodded.

            “Yea. What, you ready now?” I asked her. My heart almost skipped a beat when her eyes gazed at me. I knew Jaliesha well enough to know that look meant yes. “Word,” I grinned. I guess she really was down to have my baby. “Well, shit I’m ready if you are.”

            “…Yea,” she agreed. “I’m a little nervous though.”

            I sat up in my seat and placed my hand on her thigh. “Don’t be. Imma be right here to have yo back.”

            Jaliesha’s face lit up after those words left my mouth. “I love you Kashawn,” she told me. I leaned over and kissed the side of her face.

            “I love you too baby,” I admitted.