Schoolyard Blues

Chapter One: Onlook

"Come on, dipshit!" I yelled at my friend as he followed behind me in an alleyway, "Why you gotta be so slow?"
"Not all of us are cross country cunts," my friend remarked as he slowly caught up to me, "Some of us have asthma."
"Oh quit whining with that asthma shit," I groaned as I kicked an empty soda can on the ground, "You keep going that slow and we'll never get to the apartments."
"Ugh," my friend complained, "We go to the apartments every day."
"Shut your trap, M.C.," I told my friend, who was nicknamed M.C., "We gotta pick up Slim."
"I hate Slim, dude," M.C. told me as we crossed the alleyway to the street, "He's such a dick, and he thinks he's some sort of gangster. None of us are gangsters, he's full of it."
"Well Slim lives in the projects and don't got a dad or mom," I informed M.C., "He sells weed to get by most of the time so don't talk about what you don't know. You live with your mommy and get paid to clean your room."
"At least I got some common fucking sense," M.C. retaliated as we crossed the street to the apartment complex's parking lot, "You talk a lot of shit for someone named Xavier."
"There's a reason people call me X," I responded as I read the sign which stated 'Onlook Apartments', "Because Xavier is a shit name."
"Why we gotta pick up Slim?" M.C. changed the the subject while we walked through the main doors.
"Because I like going to the apartments," I explained as we walked to the elevator, "You know this used to be a halfway house right?"
"That's a myth, my guy," M.C. replied as the elevator went up to the sixth floor, "I've never found any proof this was a halfway house."
"I don't care, it was," I brashly stated before exiting the elevator, "Wanna go knocking on Ajax's door when we get Slim?"
"Are you fucking crazy?" M.C. asked as I knocked on Slim's door, "Ajax and his little gang of crackheads are gonna kill us one of these days if you keep doing this shit."
"Well for starters," Slim stated as he opened the door, already ready to go, "X is the craziest motherfucker I know besides myself, and Ajax won't do shit because he's a little pussy ass bitch and that's on God."
"You don't even believe in G-" M.C. began to say before I kicked his leg.
"Don't talk on my name, Matt," Slim warned M.C., who was really named Matthew Cole, "You don't know me."
"And you don't know me," M.C. replied, before we heard a voice coming around the hallway.
"This the good shit, I ain't no ten dollars a G type dude," the voice told someone else next to them, "Twenty dollars for a J, twenty-five for a gram."
The faceless voice turned around the corner, and I saw him.
It was Ajax.
Ajax was a little older than us, we were freshmen and he was a sophomore, and he was a lot taller, maybe six foot five?
Ajax was African-American, but he had bleached blonde hair and a home-made face tattoo of a snake with a harpoon through it like a money sign.
"Oh my fucking God it's these bitches again," Ajax complained about us to his friend, "Lemme scare 'em off."
Ajax walked up to us before grabbing M.C. by the back of his shirt and tossing him onto the ground.
"I told y'all not to come back here you goofy motherfuckers!" Ajax yelled before Slim pushed him aside.
"Is you my daddy or somethin' now?" Slim sarcastically stated, "Fuck outta here with that bullshit."
"I ain't talkin' to you, Slim," Ajax threatened as he dragged M.C. back up, "Stay in your fucking business."
"Soon as you stay in yours," I budded in, before Ajax replied, "Shut the fuck up, white boy."
"Oh so we racist now," M.C. responded before Ajax tossed him back to the ground.
"Shut your nerdy ass up, too," Ajax warned M.C., "If I ain't live here I'd beat the shit out of you right now."
"I'm not scared of you," M.C. replied, with a hint of fear in his voice.
Ajax pulled M.C.'s face up to his own, before menacingly stating,
"You should be."

"My God, that dude's annoying," I said once we got outside of the apartment complex, "Slim, do you got a cig?"
"My pack's almost empty but there's enough for you and M.C. to have one," Slim replied before hopping over a fence to a wooded area behind the apartments, "We're almost to the train tracks, though."
"Oh wow, I wonder what we gonna do at the train tracks," M.C. responded sarcastically, "Never could smoke weed there."
"If you're tryna be funny you're really bad at it," I informed M.C. bluntly as we hopped down to the old abandoned train tracks.
The train tracks were a series of railways stretching across the city of Dirtville, Illinois, which had been abandoned for about a decade.
Down the train tracks, on the right was a little shack where we'd all smoke and hang out, and across from the shack was a street that had an abandoned house which we simply referred to as the abandoned house; another hangout spot for us.
Between the shack and the street was a field that led to a series of abandoned factories we called 'Abandoned City,' due to its sheer size and amount of squatters.
As we walked down the railroad, we kept checking behind us for anyone following.
We had a few experiences previously with Ajax and his friends following us into secluded locations, but we always got out at the last second.
Today, no one was behind us, so we did what we always did and turned to the right; down the small trail and into the shack.
"No one followed us, right?" M.C. asked as we walked into the shack.
"No one followed us," Slim replied before taking a blunt out of his pocket, "Stop being so paranoid."
"Well I'd be less paranoid if I hadn't lost my knife last week," M.C. explained before Slim took out a lighter and lit the blunt up.
"I've got a knife on me," I told M.C., "And my grandpa has a gun if it comes down to it."
"I don't wanna kill nobody," M.C. informed us before hitting the blunt, "I'm not about that life, and y'all aren't either. We ain't no Ajax or nothin', we're just kids who like to get high.
I don't wanna die this young."
"And you won't with us at your side," I replied as I took the blunt from him and slowly dragged on it, "You're only 14, I mean who dies at 14?"
"A lot of people, actually-" M.C. began before he was cut off by me coughing and passing the blunt to Slim.
"X, you gon' make him go on a whole spiel," Slim joked as he puffed the blunt, "You know he watches that true crime shit, I mean he tried to get us to watch that Ted Bundy tapes shit forever ago."
"If y'all weren't squirmy little pussies when it came to dead bodies I'd show you a lot worse," M.C. jokingly replied, "X can confirm, we went on the deep web together."
"It wasn't really that bad," I attempted to defend myself, before M.C. burst out laughing and said, "Yeah you wasn't saying that when I had to walk you home that night because you was too scared to go by yourself."
"While you have a point," I stammered before M.C. hit the blunt again, "Just shut up."
"How 'bout you make me," M.C. replied before taking another long hit off of the blunt and staring at us.
"One of these days someone will," I responded, "If not me or Slim then Ajax."
"Bullshit," M.C. stated as he passed the blunt to me again, "None y'all will kill me, it'll be an overdose or some shit like that."
"Just stop thinking ahead," I told M.C., "After this blunt we should head home, we've got school tomorrow."
"Why we got school?" M.C. puzzlingly asked, before Slim said, "Prolly because it's Thursday, dipshit."
"Ugh," M.C. groaned, "I thought it was Friday."
"That sucks ass, bro," Slim replied sarcastically,
"Just shut the fuck up you two and pass the blunt."