A Tale of Many Tales

Chapter 3: The Art of Peer Pressure

You’ll be surprised by the number of people who are strong enough to stay true to themselves. A lot less long term thinking and a lot more getting pressured into some else’s pleasure, enjoyment, etc. What many have to learn to say is that It's My World You're Just Livin In It(Epiphany):

The life I'm living is the life I was given
One  misery is another man's salvation

Realizations within different situations,
It can take a toll on one's soul.
Like one's hand reaching deep into a glass bowl
And pulling every inch of life.

Can't have a rainbow without a little rain am I right?
I would say during late nights,
When my mind sort of takes flight,
From the turbulence from my headaches right.
A sensational pain jutting in mind, giving me something to write.
About my past mistakes when I left behind the things that were right

Mistakes have been made,
Trust me I’m still thinking of them
Reminisce on them
Its a big list of them.
And I do think it’s trip I still am missing them.

Thinking back like I should've,
I could've,
I would've,
Been a way better me,
Build a wide legacy,
And still would have old friends in high school still next to me.

But I’m so far ahead of my time,
That even in the future I be reminiscing,
About churching the youngins,
They don't be listening, they choose not to listen to my wise decisions

It's easier to build strong children
Then to repair broken men and women

I was asked
How come you to take a Bible to church every Sunday but never read it,
How every time you speak about something but you never lead  it

I only plead the 5th after a swig of this fifth of Henny,
That I paid 55 dollars and 5 pennies.

5 reasons that I,
Could respond to your why,
But I lie,
And tell you my heart and mind are empty.

Truthfully I overthink and my heart overflows,
Mindstate at possible intoxication,
And realizations,
Of dangerous situations.

And so I don't dream,
But I do plan,
Because I would feel less of a man,
If I was sleep and in the middle darkness is where I would stand.

I have a best friend, which I worked with at Legoland on the weekends by the name of Jaron. I love him to death but he would ask me random questions every time I came back from my lunch breaks. One, in particular, that I remember him asking was if I was still a virgin. After what felt like a minute, because of how sudden that question was asked in an area that held children, I then replied that I was still a virgin. He replied, “Same.” Then he started talking about how eager he was upon losing it. That day, no other words were exchanged about that topic, except me holding him to that. No pressure, trust me. But I knew he had a girlfriend that went to the same high school as he so maybe it would be with her.

Next weekend when we both came to work, he was proud to see me. As soon as I walked through the door I heard Jaron calling my name and eagerly telling me that he had something to tell me. I settled in, set my register up, and asked what happened. With a big smile on his face, he said, “I lost it.” Confused about what he meant, I replied, “Lost what?” He said that he lost his virginity. And I don’t understand every time a close friend loses their virginity then you immediately get excited for them and celebrate with them. He started bragging telling me how it started, where it happened, and what it felt like. Man, it was crazy that he said what I was thinking, “Mark you should try it, bro.” I just replied to him that I would wait until that right time and congratulated him on his come up. I remember him telling me that he was going to try and do it again. I just responded, “Make sure you have a condom.” And he replied, “For sure.”

Two weeks later when we came to work, Jaron looked very down. I figured he was just tired because he had to wake up early in the morning so I left him alone. He was extremely quiet the whole day.

That day Jaron got off work earlier than me and since Jaron doesn’t have a car he rides the Metro bus. When I clocked out, I walked out the door and headed towards my car. Halfway to my car, I heard a deep voice call my name. Frightened I turned around to see my best friend behind gasping for air. It appeared that he ran from down the street where the bus stop was to catch up with me. He asked if he could get a ride home and I replied of course and if he ran all the way over here just to ask me that then I wasn’t going to send him all the way back with a failed mission. On my way to the car, he started asking me if I could drive to all these different places that sold medicine like Walgreens and CVS Pharmacy. I joked with him that if he had that gas money then we will be on the move but then asked, “Why?”

He replied saying that he fucked up. Panicking, he started telling me the story of him having sex again and just before I was going to congratulate him he said that he didn’t pull out when he finished. When I tell you my jaw was wide, it was stuck there, you hear me? Then I asked him if he heard me tell him to have a condom and he answered yes but then he told me something that a lot of people fall for, some peer pressure. He told me that when he went to put the condom on but the female that he was with told him that she didn’t like condoms and poor Jaron fell for it. And to put the cherry on top, the female he was with wasn’t even his girlfriend.

Let’s rewind. Jaron was peered pressure by the same female he had sex with to first cheat on his girlfriend and to not use a condom. Now that we’re all caught up let’s start back up again. Now Jaron let me know that he wanted to go get a Plan B at a medicine store but first, he wanted to cash the check that he picked up at work that day when he got off. So to the bank, we went to cash his check. Then off to the first store which was Walgreens which didn’t have Plan B, only pregnancy tests. Things started to get funny the more Jaron panicked. I joked to him that he should get a pregnancy test. We left and went to CVS Pharmacy, our last option. Before we walked in, we started joking that what if we walked in and saw someone as cool and young as us working at the counter. And to our surprise, we walked in and saw a girl around our age. The process went smooth, we found Plan B and saw the price of $60. We never experienced this type of thing, so we started asking each other if we had to be 18 to buy that. I was the oldest and at the age of 18 at the time so Jaron said can you go up to the counter and pay for this Plan B with his money for him. I replied, “Hell Nah, you gonna come up here with me. You not finna have me up here looking like I made a mistake.” He had no other choice but to agree because he would’ve been embarrassed either way. So we went up to the counter and the funniest thing happened when Jaron put the box on the counter. The young girl looked at the box for three seconds, looked at Jaron for three seconds, then at me for three seconds and started ringing up the item while shaking her head, trying not to laugh. She told Jaron the total, took the cash, bagged up the box, and handed him his receipt. We were laughing all the way until we got back into my car. It was a hell of a day after work. We were still laughing while we were in the car talking about what occurred in the store. Then Jaron got serious telling me how he’s the king of getting peer pressure into stuff. He told me he just burned half of his paycheck to pay for the Plan B. He told me he just doesn’t know how to say no. Jaron is really a good guy but his whole life was going down because of peer pressure. So I drove him to the girl’s house so he can drop the Plan B off and I drove him home. I remember him telling me that the only now is up. And I told him all you need is a peer with no pressure and I dropped him off at his house with those final words that day between us.