Not more than strangers✔️

knowing you longer

"And if the sky should ever die.
We'd make our own light,
You and I."
~John Mark Green

————

24th December, 1970.

"You leave early, come home late, sometimes you don't come home at all. I don't understand you."

The static voice of his brother won't leave his head. He couldn't care less about what Edmund wants with him. He called the work phone first, and then a pay phone not so far from Jack's home. He might've called more times but Pierce preferred starving his brother of his attention.

The entirety of his life after their parents died had been the opposite. Edmund didn't want to talk to him or be a brother. He wasn't used to this new Edmund, the one that cared, that woke up one day and decided to want to bond.

Pierce tucked another box of Swishers underneath his arm, it was quiet in the basement of Jack's home, the real party was out back— A classical live band that echoed violin symphonies in the night.

Jack was hosting another cookout to celebrate the holidays, his gatherings were different from cookouts he's been invited to by the Swisher's gang. Pierce knew exactly why he was the only one here today rolling swishers. Something about earning your weight.

He saw the new faces and the jewelry on their necks, the difference in intonation and speaking, they came from all over the world. They were the crème de la crème, the new set of consumers and he knew Jack was expanding quickly.

Jack liked to be served by people like Pierce, it was an ironic turn around on slavery and a joke of class. But if Edmund's your brother, you'd also pick being a monkey on display over an evening with him. Pretending with Edmund was a nightmare, suppressed seven years of emotional and physical trauma. Edmund believed if it wasn't addressed then it never happened.

Delusional. And a bullshit way of escaping accountability.

The door knob of the basement jiggled fiercely and his heart skipped. "Mr. Jackson is making sure you're on time with the presentation tray."

He exhaled, it's just Amina. "He can't rush me if he wants it to look good." He said, weighing some rolled cigars before balancing the ends to make a tower.

Careful, he has to be careful.

"Okay, I'll tell the boss just that." Her muffled voice calls out and he rolls his eyes. He can imagine her pale freckled face fluffed up with a grin behind the door.

"Five minutes."

"That's two seconds on Jack time." Her voice fades with each word when she walks away.

Pierce exhales, taking his hands off gently. He was done, the cigars were in a cylindrical tower, the first few at the bottom making a large base and body slowly getting narrow with its height.

He adjusts his black apron, climbing up the stairs. Amina was picking at the tray she held with her left hand, she barely spares him a glance but does a double take on his tray and whistles. "No wonder you took so long." She smiles mischievously, "someone wants a promotion."

"What even comes after this?"

She shrugs, adjusting her white blouse and black hijab. "Accounting, inventory? Who knows? The only ones who get promotions are the brown guys."