Christopher Kirkpatrick was tired. His brain had stopped
functioning sometime between the time he woke up that morning and the first
period bell and he wasn’t sure when it would be ready to join the world again.
He tried to make out what the teacher was saying but he couldn’t make any sense
of it. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken he could swear that the teacher was
talking in French. He widened his eyes, shook his head a little and looked
around the room. French class. Right.
He’d pulled a late shift at Luna, the record
shop/coffee bar he worked at, the night before and he was dead tired. He
propped his head against his arm, blinked a couple times and gave his best
semblance of being awake.
He stifled a yawn. God he wished he’d stayed home that
morning. Not that he actually had a choice in the matter. His mom wouldn’t have
put up with him skipping yet another class. He’d already missed a shitload of
classes since school began, mainly to get more shifts in at the shop. His mom
didn’t like him working as much as he did but he didn’t have a choice.
He was the only man in the house, the oldest child. He had
to provide for his family. His asshole father sure wasn’t going to do it
sitting in prison. If his income, small as it was, didn’t come in who was going
to pay for the groceries? Who would help pay the bills? Every cheque went
straight to the family and without it, his mom might have had to find an extra
job even though she was already working two and going to night classes.
He closed his eyes and rested his head on his desk. He just
needed a couple of minutes. Just a few minutes and he would start paying atten…
“Monsieur Kirkpatrick? Ton idees?”
Chris shot up dazedly as he woke up from his brief nap. He
wasn’t sure how long he’d been sleeping but by the look on his teacher’s face,
it had been more than long enough.
“Uh...” he scrambled for something to say. “Voulez vous coucher avec moi…ce soir?”
The class laughed but Madame Deson did not look even
remotely amused.
“Monsieur Kirkpatrick. Si vous ne pouvez pas donner toute
votre attention à cette classe, vous ne devez pas être ici.” The teacher said,
telling him that if he couldn’t pay attention to the class maybe he shouldn’t
be there.
“You’re probably right,“ he said back to her in perfect
French before he grabbed his books and left the room.
. . .
“Brit, I’m talking,” Justin said as he pushed her away from him and continued to talk to Nelly and his other team mates about the upcoming basketball game.
She heaved an annoyed sigh. “God. All you ever do is talk
about basketball. Can’t we ever just not talk about basketball? Ever?”
Justin rolled his eyes before fully turning to her. In the
last three weeks that they had been going out, she’d been irritating the crap
out of him. He wondered why he kept her around then he looked her over and
smiled. Oh, right. “Brit, the guys and I are talking strategy. It’s not going
to be much longer. I promise, baby.” He ignored the snickers behind him as he
said the endearment and kissed her on the lips.
She smiled. “Well ok, but I’m going to sit here and wait
until—” She looked past his head and saw her best friend Jessica across the
room. “Jessie, wait up! I’ll be back
later Justy.” She said before she bounced up from the cafeteria seat and ran
over to her friend.
“Hold me closer, Justy!” Kyjuan said batting his eyelashes.
The other guys snorted and Justin raised one shoulder in a
casual shrug. “Y’all are just mad that I’m getting some and you’re not.”
Insults and jibes went flying after that and it took them a
good ten minutes to settle back down and go back to discussing the game.
As the conversation continued, Justin glanced around the
cafeteria and saw Joey and his group sitting across from him. He hadn’t hung
out with Joey since that first day of school, a month ago now, but they always
greeted each other when they passed each other down the hall.
Justin thought back to that first day and smiled. Things had only gotten better from there; his grades were up, he was going out with the prettiest girl in school and everyone admired him. Everything was perfect.
And that was the problem. It was almost too perfect.
Too easy. Everything had always been easy in his life and he’d be selfish to
complain about that, but sometimes he felt like he was missing out on
something.
It was like. Like when, Nelly had been flunking out of all
his classes and he hadn’t really cared either way because Nelly didn’t get
stressed about stuff like that. But then his girlfriend Kelly had found out and
had told him straight up that if he didn’t get his shit together, they were
over because she sure as hell wasn’t going to go out with someone who didn’t
care about passing school. And she’d meant it. So Nelly had gotten a tutor and
started studying, he even missed practice one night to finish a big paper, and
now he was passing most of his classes.
It was then that Justin realized that he was missing
something. When he saw the proud smile on Nelly’s face when he showed her the
first ‘A’ he’d ever gotten on a test. When he saw the beaming smile and the
congratulatory kiss Kelly gave Nelly in return, he knew something was missing
in his life.
And whatever it was, he wanted it.
...
“So, where are we going this weekend boys and girls?” Justin asked his friends at the end of the school day Friday afternoon.
They all had fake ID’s thanks to Nelly and his dubious connections and had been hitting the clubs every weekend.
“Y’all, let’s check out Steel. That’s where the party’s at,” Alicia, Kelly’s best friend declared as they all walked outside into the parking lot.
“Nah. I hear they only play techno shit,” Murphy Lee said shaking his head.
“Who cares? It’s the newest club out there and it’s supposed to be hot. We gotta go,” Alicia insisted.
Nelly nodded. “s'not like we got a better place.”
“Yeah, let’s go. Sounds aiight to me.” Kyjuan stated quickly. He was into Alicia and did anything to make himself look good in front of her.
“Y’all are punks. But fine, it’s all good. We’ll go to the white boy club,” Murphy Lee muttered.
Justin raised a brow and Murphy Lee had the decency to look a little embarrassed. “No offence.”
Justin snorted. “Whatever, man.”
“Hey,” Nelly interrupted, “we all know you’re black on the inside, dirrty.”
They all laughed and Justin gave them a half smile. He had to admit that it was funny how he’d blended into Nelly’s crowd who were predominantly black. Especially considering that in Memphis most of his friends had been white. Not that it mattered to him, obviously. It was just proof that his old life was over.
The group quickly decided to meet at a restaurant for food later that night and went their separate ways until they’d meet again.
...
Chris set up the equipment he used at Steel. He smiled as he shifted his box of vinyl’s closer and set them up beside his turntables. Working at Steel was still a little surreal to him. He’d been trying to get into deejaying for a long time and when Steel had opened a couple months earlier, he’d seen his chance to get really into it. Unfortunately, Johnny Wright, the owner, hadn’t felt the same. He’d told Chris that he was too young to play at the club.
That hadn’t stopped Chris though. He returned every weekend with tapes and mixes and begged Johnny to let him play. One day the resident DJ hadn’t shown up and Chris had pressed Johnny to let him go on until Johnny finally gave in. The night had gone so well that Johnny offered Chris the warm-up spot on Friday nights before the regular DJ went on and he’d taken it.
It wasn’t the best paying job. It definitely didn’t help pay the bills at home but deejaying made him happy and was the only selfish pursuit he had.
He slid his headphones around his neck, slipped the vinyl’s he was planning to use to open his set on his turntables and got ready for the night to start.