Soul Searching

2: Nostalgia and Lizards

Thomas was still seething with anger as he drove north on I-95. Rocky was in the passenger seat talking out the side of his neck about how he was going to pay him back, but Thomas knew better than to hold his breath.

Underneath all the anger though was a strong nostalgia. Every familiar exit he zoomed past made him realize how good it felt to be home. He turned up the volume to his radio to drown out Rocky's babbling. Jeezy's Quickie was blasting through his speakers.

I'm on that Grey Goose
A lil Red Bull, so you know how I'm feelin' tonight

"I just called I ain't want shit wanna know if we was chillin tonight," he sang along, bobbing his head to the music.

He slammed on his breaks when a car suddenly cut in front of him. He switched out of the lane and sped up until he was beside the car. He rolled the windows down and shouted, "Learn how to fucking drive!" While flipping him off.

"Calm down you road rage monster," Rocky joked before returning his attention back to his phone. It was one of those rare occasions where he logged into Facebook just to see what was up with niggas he knew. "Oh shit." Rocky turned the volume down and reread the caption.

"First you get my shit broken. Now you turnin' down my damn radio."

"Chill man, look at this shit. Ugly man got arrested."

"Ugly man?" Thomas racked his brain trying to find a face to match the name to, but honestly the name didn't even sound familiar.

"Yeah, what's her name brother. Shit, what's her name? That ugly ass broad that was always on my dick back in the day."

"Monica? How you fucked with her, but don't know her name?"

Rocky shrugged. "She probably told me, but it's hard to understand someone when yo' dick in they mouth."

Thomas remembered Monica; he remembered her well. She was in love with Rocky, and yeah real nigga shit, she wasn't the best looking girl, but she had a great personality. She and Thomas were really close, or at least he thought they were. She used to always call him bestfriend, but he soon realized he was the middle man that could get her to Rocky.

Everytime Rocky would stop fucking with her, she'd text Thomas with that bestfriend line and ask him to chill with her and her girls. "Bring Rocky," she'd never fail to say, and like a dumbass he always did. He chuckled and shook his head at the memories.

He remembered her younger brother well too. He was about five years younger than them and would always flip out when anybody tried to spit game at Monica. She may not have been a ten in the face, but she had a body that belonged on the cover of every urban magazine.

"Damn, Charlie? The hell he got arrested for?"

"Armed home invasion," Rocky answered.

"Shit." That was all Thomas had to say, Rocky knew exactly where his thoughts were going; the same place where his thoughts were.

That nigga done, they both thought together.

That could've been me. That was me. Charlie had to be about the same age Thomas was when he left for Japan. It really did something to him when he realized majority of the neighborhood would be in the same place they were when he left.

Kids that used to look up to them and finesse them out of their money were probably running the streets, locked up, or dead. Girls he went to school with, crushed on, and even fucked were probably mothers now. They probably still chilled at the park, fucked with the same no good ass niggas, and complained about how they wanted to get out of the hood.