Collide (Kyr)

"Nah, but it's 4/20 so I blazed that fawkin' shit."

He said it so lazily for the most part. Kevin seemed to be walking with a purpose now, taking strides before suddenly remembering Kyr was behind him. Those strides reverted to a leisurely stroll to allow Kyr some time to catch up. He didn't look her way, but nodded and gave a low "Mmhm," to himself. Probably acknowledgement that she reached him. "Oh, by the way..." Kevin slowed his pace, his lips parting as if he had something pressing to say.

"4/20's one of those shits where nobody knows what the fawk it means, except everybody and they mama just smokes dumb amounts of weed." Kevin had an idea that Kyr didn't know the occasion. Speaking of moms..."I used to smoke a lot of weed." He slowly turned his head to look Kyr in the face...and almost tripped as they walked along a path, but he recovered. "A LOT of weed, HELLA weed. It was the shit to do with the peoples I used to bang with, those muthafuckas..." Kevin cleared his throat and continued. "I went to juvie for a minute...had to do some shit, came back home a few months before I came here. You can imagine Moms wasn't havin' it." Kevin chuckled a little as he reminisced. "So I been a'ight, ain't missed it much...but I been smokin' again since I got here."

He shrugged his shoulders as the school's campus got closer. "You up in the dorms, roght?"

Kyr knew just how to spark Kevin's inebriated interests. Get it? Sparked? Like sparking a joint? Yeah? Maybe? No? Ok. ._.

"Whaaaaaat?" Kevin's eyes went incredibly wide at the notion that Kyr had never gotten high. Then again...Kevin could see that. Of course she hadn't. She probably never had the opportunity of being exposed to a bad influence. Like him, for example. "Kevin nodded slowly, rubbing his chin for a moment. "I mean...shiiiit, it's what'chu make of it, I guess..." He sheygged before continuing on. "Some folks take that shit to relax, then you got all the medicinal muhh'fuckas...I just smoke 'cause it's fun to me." He then raised his right index finger before mocking every public service announcement in existence. "BUT YOU CAN HAVE THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE WITHOUT DRUGS." Seriously, she could. Kevin just chose not to.

"You ain't gotta get high to have a good time, or be chill as fuck, or talk to chicks or..." He caught himself for a second. There was a point where Kevin just looked off into space without saying anything before mumbling out a "...Yeah." By now, Kyr inquired about why exactly he went to jail and it served as a welcome diversion. "Oh, that? Fuck nah, I ain't go to jail for smokin' no weed. Nah, the muthafuckas I banged with set me up! Said I was ringleadin' shit, made it seem like I told 'em to split homeboy's wig when I ain't even touch that foo'! Just because I decided homie ain't do shit, they felt like they wanted to get rid of my ass! Ol' punkass, hoe ass fuckboys!" Kevin kicked a nearby soda can that littered the ground, watching it flip and skid along the way. "Nah, I went to juvie over some bullshit...went there for a few months, then a group home 'til they felt I could come home. THEN they said I needed to go to 552. Moms wasn't crazy 'bout it, knew the achool had a reputation n'shit but otherwise, it was figure out what school wanted the kid that ALLEGEDLY shotcalled a whole crew of goons into beatin' a 6th grader 'til he had brain damage."

By now, Kyr had seen a whole spectrum of facial expressions, from anger to sorrow to shock. Now, Kevin just looked blank, tired, exhausted with emoting so much. "Kid can't even take care of himself." Though he didn't lay a finger on that boy, what ate at Kevin about that fateful day wasn't just being accused of such, but knowing that despite his refusal to participate in the jumping, Kevin did nothing to stop it. He just stood there and watched it unfold. Even though good sense said he would have gotten his ass kicked, part of him strongly believed that his action could have saved that boy a life of difficulty that was undeserved.

Kevin didn't smoke for fun, he smoked because it prevented him from feeling much.

There was a moment where the two didn't say much. Then Kyr broke the silence, and he was happy she did. "My moms, shit...she must've had some bad karma because she had my ol' dumbass." Kevin smiled wide at himself before cackling. "But on the real? She's dope, she so fuckin' dope...left fuckin' Brazil on 'er own, got a medical degree. She works up at the hospital off California Street..." And then he looked to Kyr and squinted.

"She kinda looks like you with a tan...you ain't from Brazil, is you?"

Kevin couldn't tell Kyr who de Sade was but he could name his top 5 songs that Sade put out in their Greatest Hits CD. Uncultured ploebian.

Half-shut eyes rolled in Kyr's direction for only a brief moment as he moved the subject along. "It's good you know ya history." Kevin reached inside of one of his pockets. In his hand was an already rolled joint and a simple lighter. He'd bring the former to his lips and ignite it with the latter, inhaling througj tight lips as the cherry burned bright against the darkness. Kevin dropped the lighter back in his pocket and took the joint in his fingers as his lings held in the smoke for a few seconds, then released it in a hard exhale.

"I don't."

Such was the dilemma of being the son of a woman who left her motherland and didn't look back. Kevin had an idea that something bad happened that forced his mother to leave Brazil. Still, it did little to treat a wound that festered over some years: Kevon felt like he had no roots. He didn't understand his mother's culture, he didn't know what family meant and couldn't accurately replicate what it meant to have that support system. He'd try, but sich were ideas that weren't native to him.

"Moms came here before I was born n'shit. Dunno who my family is." Kevin took another hit of the weed, tried to hold the smoke and ended up coughing and hacking everywhere.