The Stick Up Kid

Chip Off The Old Block

A month later I was sitting on the porch outside my dad’s housing complex. I had been living with him for the past three and a half weeks now. It would have been cool to move in with Jaliesha at her parents home, but with Amp and Davontae staying a few houses down that would be suicide.

            These last few weeks haven’t been doing me so well either. My money was running down the drain with every passing day. Raquan and I went out to rob people almost everyday last week, but only got sixty dollars between the two of us. Since it’s wintertime, there’s a shortage on most of the drugs. So robbing dope boys wasn’t too beneficial. Not to mention that the only ones worth robbing were virtually untouchable. I needed money and bad.

            “Boy you still sittin’ out here?” I heard my dad say from behind me. He closed the door and took a seat next to me.

            “Yea…” I sighed.

            Dad pulled a cigarette from his pocket and placed it in his mouth. “What you thinking bout? Look like ya schemin’ on somethin’.”

            “I am,” I admitted. My dad already knew I had robbed people before, he didn’t seem to care about it though.

            “You need to be schemin’ on gettin’ a job,” he said, lighting the cigarette.

            “Why? Aint nobody trynna hire no nigga like me,” I replied. My dad shook his head.

            “Somebody will. You just gotta keep applyin’,” He blew a cloud of smoke out of his mouth and looked around the area. “Man I use to do the same bullshit you doin’ Kashawn. And that shit don’t get you nowhere.”

            I put my hands in my pockets. The last thing I wanted to hear was a sermon from my dad. “What else is there? Even if I do get hired, how long will it take? I know niggas that been jobless for years,” I reasoned. “My baby gon be here in 8 months. I aint got time to be waitin’ round for some white man to dish me out a job.”

             “Yea you do,” my dad said. “You just think you don’t.” I opened my mouth to reply, but couldn’t come up with anything. “I use to be just like you Kashawn. Hittin’ licks, ridin’ on niggas, and all that other shit. But you know what that cost me?” I glanced at my dad, waiting for him to finish. “You… it cost me you and Libya.”

            “What you mean?” I asked, a little confused.

            “Man I was so busy fuckin’ round with the boys, and so called ‘gettin’ it’, I got arrested. And I missed libya’s birth, and seven years of your life,” he explained. My body kind of tensed up after hearing that. “That’s what you want for baby? Too miss their first words? Miss they first day of school?” He stared at me seriously. “Let me answer that for you… no, you don’t.”

            “But…”

            “Aint no ‘buts’ man,” dad interrupted. “The ‘buts’ aint keep my butt outta jail,” he joked with a slight smirk on his face. “ya feel me?”

            “Yea,” I nodded. “Yea I feel you.” Although I said yea, and I did agree with him; it wasn’t going to stop me from doing what I was going to do. My mom always said I was hard headed, and guess she was right. Because nothings going to stop me from getting that money.