Schoolyard Blues

Chapter Seven: Lies

"You want to shop from the Monkey Man?!"
The room fell silent, before Monkey Man turned to Slim and handed him a bag of weed.
"Don't go to your school with the gas!" Monkey Man warned us, "And good luck with the child, my twink friend!"
"I'm not a fucking twink you fat son of a whore," M.C. jokingly responded as Monkey Man stared him down blankly, suddenly bursting onto laughter.
"We should hop out of this bitch," Slim told Monkey Man, "Got school tomorrow and shit."
"Don't let the Smiley killer snatch you on your way home!" Monkey Man joked, "No really. I've been researching this theory that says Dale was framed. It's really interesting and proposes that the true killer is still out there."

On the streets of Dirtville, Christmas songs blared even though it was the end of November.
"You think it'll snow this year?" I asked M.C., before he replied, "The temperature dropped down to like thirty degrees last night, so less likely for this year and more likely for this week, maybe even today."
"Sometimes I wish Santa was real," I joked, "Then we'd actually have an old bearded man in the sky to look up to."
"Santa isn't real?!" Lucky exclaimed in shock, "My whole life is a lie!"
"Neither is the Easter bunny, or the tooth fairy, or Margaret Thatcher," M.C. told Lucky, "Wait, no, I think Margaret Thatcher was real but she died. What I meant was Marilyn Manson."
"Marilyn Manson is real too," I informed M.C. as he quickly stated, "I meant Charles Manson."
"But Charles Manson was real, too," I began, before M.C. said, "Just shut up I meant Jeffrey Epstein."
"Now that guy was definitely real," I remarked, followed by M.C. shouting, "Shut up!"
"What's next?" Slim joked, "The Smiley killer ain't real?"
"Not as we know him, no," M.C. explained, "But y'all aren't ready for that yet."

The next day at school, I was in algebra when I got a text from M.C. which was nothing but scrambled letters.
"Are you okay?" I asked M.C. over text, to which he replied, "2nd floor bathroom."
I dashed to the restroom, and when I turned the hallway my mind went to the worst.
I bolted into the small corridor which led to a tiny bathroom, where three tall boys including Ajax and CJ stood outside of a stall, banging on it.
"Come out little bitch boy!" Ajax shouted at M.C. inside, before he noticed me, saying, "Should've called Slim over instead of this trash bag."
"Fuck you," I boldly stated into Ajax's face, proceeding to punch him in the mouth and yell at M.C., "Get out!"
Ajax tackled me to the ground and pinned me down, beating my head into the floor before M.C. suddenly grabbed him, slamming his face into the mirror and cracking it.
"You fucking piece of shit!" Ajax screamed in pain, revealing his face which had been cut open by the glass, "I'm gonna kill you!"
"And I'll own a farm," I said sarcastically, "Get out of here, Ajax."
Suddenly, CJ hit me in the face with his binder, throwing me for a loop and letting Ajax get on top of M.C. as he beat his face in.
M.C. quickly reached into Ajax's pocket, pulling his knife out and driving it into his stomach, pushing him off of himself and putting the blade to his throat.
"I'll fucking kill you," M.C. stated in a cold, disturbing voice, "Don't think I won't, shit stain."
"Do it, Matthew," Ajax remarked as he laughed, "You won't."
M.C. began to slide the blade across the throat of Ajax, before slowly getting off of him and handing the knife to me.
"You do it," M.C. told me, "You don't have shit to lose. I have a kid on the way. A girlfriend. A life.
You kill that sack of shit."
"I can't," I responded, "He isn't worth my time."
"Y'all are good..." Ajax began, "Maybe too good. I underestimated you kids.
I respect you, even if I hate y'all."
Suddenly, Slim ran inside of the restroom, shouting, "Short life, motherfucker!" Before kicking Ajax on the ground.
"Took you long enough," M.C. complained, "I was waiting the entire time."
"Seems you didn't need my help," Slim remarked, staring at Ajax on the wet floor, "He looks beat up to me."
"Where did CJ go?" I asked, realizing CJ was out of sight.
"Right here, fuckface!" CJ shouted as he swung his fists at my head, leading to Slim body checking him to the ground with Ajax.
"Let's get out of here," I said to Slim and M.C.,
"Let's go home."

"I'm so dead," M.C. regretfully told us as he rocked back and forth in the abandoned house, "Ajax is gonna kill me."
"No he won't," I assured M.C., "You'll be fine."
"I feel like everything is crumbling," Slim lamented, "I think M.C. might be right for once. I'm losing it."
"Keep it together, y'all," I said to them, "We'll get through this. I promise."
"Promises don't mean shit in a world where they're constantly broken," M.C. informed me, before hitting his cigarette and softly crying,
"Nothing can ever be the same."
"Remember when we was kids and we thought the world was all sunshine and rainbows?" Slim rhetorically asked us.
"It was all lies, Slim," I explained, "But that doesn't mean it's the opposite either. The world sucks, but it has its highs too. You have to live a life to know if you don't like it and we haven't even lived a quarter of ours."
"What if this is the end of our lives?" M.C. questioned me, "What if we don't know it but we'll die soon?"
"I don't fucking know, Matthew," I broke down, "I'm only human."
"Then stop acting like you're better than human," M.C. remarked, puffing his cigarette, "You don't know shit about the world, you're just another hopeless hoodlum scrounging for loose change so you can get a gram of weed like the rest of us.
You're nothing special."