Ford *One-Shots*

Walking Among Tombstones with Jaya

This is the expansion of a flashback scene from one chapter of JTPR. This was the first ever time Jake and Maya spoke. (Question: Can you tell me WHICH chapter contains the flashback that this scene is expanded from? First correct answer gets to pick the next one-shot. Remember: FETUS Jake i.e. BEFORE age 18. Eg. A one-shot about the scar on Jake's lip from Sharon's ring)

Lord, how I hate math. Anyway, since they're five years apart, and Jake is 16 here, Maya is 11. Two babies! Hope you enjoy!

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Walking Among Tombstones with Jaya

Fetus Jake: Aged 16

"Are you outta your goddamned minds?" I snapped.

I surveyed the scene before me: Broken glass on the concrete floor, and five teenage boys sitting on their aѕses bent over the white powder that they'd sorted out onto the glass. Empty beer and soda cans littered the floor, as well as takeout boxes and paper wrappers.

It was a late Saturday afternoon, and like always, I was out hanging out with a bunch of guys who were either too stoned, too drunk, or too horny to make any sense.

Except, today was different. I'd just stopped by from a hard day spent doing all the chores my ma flung my way, expecting to find the guys drinking beer and talking ѕhit but finding them large baggies of a white powder any idiot could tell was real bad.

This was too stupid, even for them.

"You're snorting coke now?" I asked the obvious, wondering just when I got to be the nagging bitсh of our little band of merry lowlifes.

"Chill, Jakey," someone said. I didn't even know who the fucκ that guy was−must've been someone my friends had invited over to our spot for this drug fest−but there was no way he was gonna talk to me like that.

"Don't call me that," I snapped, balling my hands into fists at my sides. "Where'd you get the crack from?"

They were all so out of it, it was a wonder any of them were able to form a meaningful sentence.

"Don't act like you don't know," said Sam, a guy I'd always thought of as a dicκ in my head. He even looked like an actual dicκ−shaved glistening head and all.

"I don't know where the hell you got this ѕhit from," I spat.

I sold weed. Good, premium kush that made you contemplate your life choices.

I sold cigarettes−and not the cheap kind, either. I swiped the good stuff from a lot of the biker brothers that were always hanging around our house. They were good guys, and they smoked really good ѕhit. I made a lot of money selling their misplaced boxes of cigarettes.

But cocaine? No. Fucκing. Way.

Wouldn't touch that crap with a hangnail.

I'd seen firsthand what that crap did to people, how easy it was to become addicted. Just looking at what had happened to Cat's mom was enough to prove that that drug was the devil's vice. Whatever that meant. My ma loved saying that: Masturbation is the devil's vice. Crack is the devil's vice. And so on.

Cocaine had turned Cat's mom into a crazy person, bent on getting high and doing anything to get there. I was pretty sure she'd sold her body. The McNally family was into that nonsense−prostitution. My old man talked badly about that kind of business. Even if I didn't like the guy, I respected his views.