Kenney: Still Waters Part 2

Chapter 24

I got fucked up that night, I'm not even gonna lie. It was my first and only time getting high on my own supply. On anyone's supply. That was just never my thing. Between daddy and Aunt Jazz, I just...couldn't. I couldn't deal with that shit outside of business, and everyone on the block knew that. Rico loved that. It meant that he never had to watch me with his product. He didn't have to watch Jazz, either, to tell you the truth. She may have been looking for stray rocks in the carpet, but she wasn't stupid enough to try to lift anything from Uncle Rico.

Nobody was.

Drugs and alcohol were never my thing, but fuck it. Tonight...I shook my head and took the last brick of weed that I still needed to sell for the week. I only pulled out a dime for myself, though, because money was still money. Then I grabbed a bottle of Remmey's moonshine that Uncle Rico had stashed and headed out to the train tracks. I hadn't been out there since my last time going with Sammy. When I got up to the top, I rolled that shit up like a pro, kicked my legs out over the side of the tracks, sat back, and relaxed.

It was like a fifty foot drop if a train ever did decide to come that way, but according to Sammy, one would never come so I didn't even think twice about getting blitzed up there. 

I still believed her. 

Everything that she ever told me. 

I still believed.

"Sammy..." I said like she was sitting right next to me. "Shit's really fucked up now. What the hell am I supposed to do with Aunt Jazz?" I looked over to my right, like she was really sitting there, and then I looked back over my city, toking and blowing smoke out like I had been smoking my whole life.

I guess some things you really can learn by watching.

"Really fucked up," I repeated again quietly, and I swear I felt her pat my hand as I took another swig of that damn fire water Remmey used to push before Uncle Rico needed him to put more focus on the family business, and less focus on his side hustle. I looked down at the bottle and realized that might have been the last one left from Remmey's bootlegging days. I would have to deal with Rico later if it was. I shrugged and took another giant gulp.

Fuck it.

I was about a fourth of the way through the moonshine and about halfway through the dime when I heard footsteps clanging up the ladder and then slowly approaching me. I didn't even look to see who it was. I didn't give a shit.

"Hey." Her voice was gentle and familiar.

The sun had almost completely set and I had to blink twice to make sure that I was really seeing who I was seeing. It had been a while. She was even more beautiful than I remembered. Her ass had gotten fatter, too.

"Hey." I blinked a third time at Tiana, letting my eyes wander over her shirt, slowly across her mini skirt and down her legs, briefly wishing that I had been climbing up that ladder behind her to get a real good look. I took every single new curve in, and then I went back to the weed.

"What's this?" she asked sitting down beside me, and took an extra-long swig out of the bottle before I could answer. She started coughing and gasping as soon as it hit that spot. "Remmey," she choked out and put the bottle down.

I smiled and nodded. She, Charity and Sammy must have been sneaking tastes with the rest of the kids back in the day for her to recognize it that fast.

"Shit's real," she said in a raspy voice and reached for the blunt that I was handing her. She eyed me, because she knew I didn't smoke or drink, but she also didn't say anything about it. She never did. Tiana never spoke on most of the things that she saw going on around her. "So..." she inhaled deeply and blew out a smoke ring. I was impressed and wondered how long she had been smoking. The last time I saw her, she didn't do any of that either...as far as I knew. "What's up?"