XO- gee

XO- one

AGE FIFTEEN-

"Three pounds! I fucking gave you three pounds and you can't sell shit!"

She smacked the man across the face and I jumped a bit.

Over the years I've grown used to the sound of men being slapped by my mother but it sometimes gave me the chills. One of the main things I wondered was how she grew the balls to slap a drug dealer.

Okay, she was the boss of whatever this thing was but still, she would slap them, punch them, torture them... how could someone live like that? It made me fear her and his whole thing.

I mean, what kid wouldn't be scared knowing that there was a tunnel to Mexico in your basement that allows immigrants, drug dealers, arms men, and prostitutes...lots of them...right into America. Nothing wrong with them coming to our country just not my group of people that I'd prefer living in my fucking basement. 

I lit up a joint with the lighter my mother gave me and I looked over at her.

"He can't sell this shit because it is shit mom, who the hell are you getting this from? What about the other strains from that one Mexican, uh- fuck r-Raul? Raúl? He was cool. He sold good shit"

I watched as she walked over to me, the sound of her three inch heels clacking against the wooden floors gave me a headache. Wear sandals bitch.

She bent over slowly and took the joint out from between my lips. She inhaled the drug and blew it in my face. She dropped it on the floor, stepped on it and flicked my head.

She walked over to the man and started talking Spanish.

Random side note- Do all Mexicans speak Spanish? Wait that's going to sound racist but it's a serious question! Do some of them speak like...I don't know Russian or Italian? Or even English. How many Mexicans do you know that their first language is English?

It's very uncommon and with the amount of them that come through the tunnel I have yet to meet one.

Maybe I should learn Spanish-

"Gerard, you need to go to a friends house. Now"

My mother had that look on her face. Someone was going to die tonight. Well technically anyone can die at any point but to be more specific, someone who works for my mother was going to die tonight.

God she reminds me of my father.

Ever since she got into this business she started acting like my father. It was scary seeing him again- in woman form I guess but still.

She would talk with the same Jersey accent, the cigarette between her teeth and the sarcasm in her voice, just like my father.

He would constantly bug my mother to get a job. She would need it she would be nothing without something to fall back on,  what if something happened to him, she'd be hopeless and unable to raise her child.

Well something did happen to him, a car accident, a fucking car accident.

Some guy who was high as hell decided it was smart to take a ride out in town but little did he know he wasn't driving over a rainbow covered in glitter, nah he was running over my father. The man I never got to know well because of marijuana and now, I sell it to help my mother.

She sat down at the head of the table and looked at me, waiting for my response. And so, I snapped.

"Why? I'm not a kid mom I know what's going on here. Stop treating me like a fucking kid for once and treat me like the employee I am!"

I slammed my hands on the table and I watched as the grams of weed bounced up, and then back down to the table.

My mother gave the same look to me that she gave that man before.

She grabbed a gun from the kitchen counter and held it at me.

She giggled.

"You wanna be my fucking employee? How bout-Don't talk to your boss like that. Especially when she's holding a gun towards your throat"

I closed my eyes waiting for the inevitable. She pulled the trigger, nothing happened but a small 'bang'.

Laughter was spreading through the house and I opened my eyes to see her wide smile with her cherry red lipstick, man do I despise that damn lipstick. It always gets in her teeth and smells like artificial shit.

"I love ya kid but your still a kid. Head over to that boy's house down the street. That Christian family is nice. Get a fucking haircut too you look like a girl"

She shooed me away and I rolled my eyes. Before I headed over to this guys house to be baptized or some shit, I grabbed a joint, I'd need it if I was going to get through this night.

The outdoors wasn't so bad it's just the fact that my mother treats me like a child and forces me to leave so she can 'handle her business' is what's bad. The walk to that boy's house wasn't all that bad. Neither was the boy, he was pretty cute