White Trash Trailer Park (8 Mile fanfiction)

Chapter Fifteen: Friends

The next day, after getting over her confrontation with her dad, Ryland accompanied Jimmy, Future, Sol and Iz to Cheddar Bob's house. He had been sent home from the hospital, and as far as the guys knew, he was home alone.

Jimmy knocked at the door repeatedly, but there was no answer. He tried to peak through the window of the door, but couldn't really see in much.

"Man, ain't nobody here," Iz finally said.

"I can't believe they sent him home already," Sol said, speaking what was on everyone's mind.

"I'm telling you, if you ain't got insurance, the medical establishment will fuck you up," Iz said. Ryland shoved her hands in her pockets and kept her mouth shut.

That was true and Ryland had experienced it first hand. Many trips to the hospital with her mom that were proven null when the doctors found out the family didn't have insurance. But Ryland tried not to think about that. After the day before, she didn't want to think about her mom or dad or anyone.

"Where the fuck else would he be?" Jimmy asked as the group began to walk away from Cheddar's house.

"Just thank God he's alive," said Future.

"No," Sol said. "Thank God he didn't shoot his fucking dick off."

"That's why brothers need to sign themselves a deal," Iz piped up. "I'm telling you, record labels will supply us with the kind of benefits we need."

"Dog, we sign ourselves a deal, you can take the motherfucking benefits. We talking Bentleys and Benjamins, not Blue Cross and Blue Shields."

Ryland rolled her eyes as she lagged behind the group a bit with Jimmy. Another one of these conversations. It seemed as if the group spoke like this quite a lot, and Ryland had only really known them a couple of weeks.

Beside her, Jimmy was peering back at Cheddar's house again. Ryland looped her arm through his, drawing his attention to her. She smiled, and received a smile in return. That's all she really needed right now.

"I'll tell y'all the truth," Future spoke. "I don't give a fuck about none of that. I just wanna get the three one third on the box, you know what I'm saying? One of them strong songs on JLB."

"What we need to do is save that shit up, put it into some savings bonds every where. Stack it, build out own studio - " Iz suggested.

"Savings bonds?" Future questioned.

Ryland mentally agreed with Iz. The benefits of a record deal was truly a need when you lived somewhere like Detroit. And building a studio seemed like a perfect idea. Get other artists to come in, charge them for their sessions, make back the money they spent building the studio.

But she decided not to speak up this time. This seemed like an arguement between them, not her. She wasn't even as deep as the rest of the group was. Obviously, Ryland didn't want to spend her life working at the Stamping, but she also knew rapping wasn't in her future. She did it more as a pass time or a hobby, not a career.

"Let me ask you something," said Sol to Iz, snapping Ryland from her thoughts. "How the fuck are we brothers? We need fine bitches and phat rides, no goddamn savings bonds!"

"Man, that's all we ever do is talk shit!" Jimmy interrupted, more serious than the rest of the group was being. He turned to Sol first, mimicking his voice as he repeated, "We need to get fine bitches and phat rides - " He turned to Iz next and said, "No, what we need to do is put our money into savings bonds - " He finished with Future, "No, what we need to do is get our songs on JLB, man, shut the fuck up. None of us ever do shit about nothing and we're still all broke as fuck and living with our moms."