Blaze...

  

Scottie proved to be as big of an eater as he was a risk taker. He had money so he wasn’t concerned about the size of the meal.

He told me “order what you want Leesha cause I’m about to act like I aint ate since last year! I seen this dude eating one of these hamburgers on the bus the other day and I was about to jack that fool.”

“You’re crazy!”

“Nah, for real… That thought went through my mind to take homeboy’s burger ‘cause that shit looked so good. But then I calmed my ass down and just used that as some motivation to make money. Now that I got the money, I can get my own damn hamburger, you feel me.”

I looked at Scottie in disbelief but he was really serious about what he’d said. Not only that but he ended up buying two King Fatburgers, which are their biggest and he got a large soda to wash it all down. I just ordered one burger and some fries. I barely ate all of it so I wrapped it up to take home with me. Since mama don’t care if I eat or not, I could warm my leftover burger up and eat the rest later.

After we finished eating, Scottie asked me if I would just chill with him for a while. I got nervous behind his request, at first.

“What do you mean, go home with you?” I asked.

“Nah…Leesha. There you go, again.”

“How am I supposed to know what you mean?”

“’Cause I’ma tell you what I mean.”

“Okay.”

“It’s simple. I was talking bout sitting here a little longer and conversating. I mean, over here you ain’t gotta worry about that fool with the yellow Volkswagon. Plus, we ain’t really get to talk where you could see that I ain’t trying to hook up with you.”

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?”

“Shit, I don’t know… How you doing in school?”

“It’s okay. I’m just trying to get out of there.”

“You gonna wish you was back in school once you get older. School is some real shit if you in there for the right reasons.”

I rolled my eyes as if to warn the world that Scottie was about to start with another excerpt from his philosophy about life.

“Aww, that’s not cool, rolling your eyes. I’ma remember that…”

Scottie’s feelings were hurt so I tried to reach over and touch his hand but he pulled it away. I worried that he was seriously offended but then he started smiling. That smile would become our connection because no matter what would be going on around us or what we were into, once Scottie flashed his smile, the world was alright with me.