Thomas Jones & Sonny Kassem
The Bleachers - No Interaction
Thomas reached for his phone, blinking his eyes repeatedly to try and rid himself of the grogginess that staying still and reading for a couple of hours always gave him. Maybe not a couple of hours, according to his phone it was 5:40am so it had only been an hour and a half, but still, it was hard to keep track of the passage of time when invested in a book. He’d been reading The Awakening of Intelligence again. It was one of his favourite books and he liked to re-read it every year or so to see if he perceived the discussions within it any differently. Alas he had things to do today and no more time for such meditations.
He got up slowly from his bed feeling lazy and sluggish and flipped on his bedroom light. Damn space was so small he barely had to take two steps to reach the switch. Turning around he looked at himself in his full size mirror. He was naked, just how he liked to sleep. He was feeling uncharacteristically self conscious today though, probably because today was the day he’d meet, or at least see a bunch of the people he’d be attending school with. He looked at his own face, he wasn’t ugly, but he’d never be a model, not that he'd ever had any aspirations of being one. His eyes moved down to his arms and he tensed them some. At least those looked good, both muscular and toned, they fitted well on his stocky build. He looked at his stomach and chest. They were broad, so that was good, but his stomach was a little chubby, not to mention the ugly scar a few inches left of his belly button. Finally he just looked at himself fully. He was of about average height for his age, but his dad was only about 5’7 from what he could remember and his mum was under 5’. That combined with the fact that his muscles were already developed and he had hair where grown people do made him worried that he wouldn’t get much, if any taller than he was now.
He sighed, taking his boxers off of his computer chair, putting them on and grabbing a towel. Time to try and make himself presentable he figured.
Half an hour later he stood fully dressed in front of his bedroom mirror. He didn’t look bad. He’d opted to wear his
dark gray jacket over a white t-shirt, along with loose fitted dark blue jeans and his black hiking boots. The boots were comfortable and added a couple of inches to his height, which he liked. Satisfied he looked as good as he could make himself look he left his room and headed downstairs. He found his mum and Kas both sat on the sofa watching TV, Kas took a long drag of his spliff before passing it to his aunt. She’d been up all night again. She’d spent most nights awake for the last… Well, she’d done it for all of his life. Guess she found it more peaceful. Surprisingly
Kas was actually dressed, usually he'd be asleep for at least another five hours.
"Morning ma... Aye Kas, you actually coming to the carnival?" Thomas asked casually, opening the kitchen door a little to try and let some of the weed smoke out of the living room.
"Yeah, I gotta sell some product. Half my damn customers right now are middle aged rich assholes who need to toke one after a stressful day trading stocks... flipping real estate and shit." He laughed, finding himself funny as usual. "Great for the paper, don’t get me wrong. These dudes buy in bulk, but they're no fun to deal with at all. Plus I want to see the gyal dem I’mma be tryna fuck for the next few years."
"Sonny." Maria warned.
"Sorry auntie."
"Anyway, cool." Thomas interrupted. "On the subject of money though, can you lend me $30? I need some money for the carnival, school lunches and whatever else."
"I gave your broke ass $20 last week!"
"I bought food with that, which you’ve been eating! Plus don’t even hit me with that broke bullshit. You been making nuff cash just for walking a mile or two every now and then."
"Don’t blame me cause I’m more entrepreneurial than you bitch."
"You two, I’m trying to watch this."
Kas rolled his eyes, but got up, they both stepped out of the room and shut the door behind them.
"Shit, it’s bright as hell in here." Thomas complained, shielding his eyes as they were trying to adjust from the relative darkness of the living room.
"True that." Kas agreed.
"Anyway, yeah, you the shit for breaking into a tiny ass towns underworld in record time, but for me to make that kind of money I’ll have to work ten hour shifts cleaning dishes or washing cars, and I still wouldn’t be able to get the hours to make in a year what your ass is making in a month."
"Whatever man, fine. Take this fifty… Be complimenting me and shit, that’s a low blow cuz, you know I can't resist flattery."
"Thank you." Thomas smiled, fist bumping his cousin.
"Welcome man, we leaving?"
"Yup, you got your stuff?"
"Yeah."
"You can't bring a blade to school on your first day man."
"Shit, yeah I can. These rich punks ain't searching no one. Besides, I'd be more worried about the cro if I were you. The blade don't stink." He chuckled, finding the pissed off look his cousin gave him amusing.
"Fine, just don't get me expelled or arrested. Let's go."
Kas and Thomas walked back through the living room, Thomas leaning down and giving his mum a kiss on the cheek.
"We’re off mum. Try and get some sleep, you were up all day yesterday too."
"I will. You two be safe. Love you."
"We love you too. Inabit." Thomas said softly, going out into the doorway.
"Peace auntie!" Kas grinned, following him.
"Alright, let’s go punk."
Half an hour later they were sat on the bleachers on the schools field listening to the enthusiastic speech coming from the head mistress. It was pretty surreal compared to what Thomas was used to back in England. His old school sure as shit never had this kind of pride holding it's faculty and students up. Even still he scowled at Kas who was sat next to him, giggling at the display.
"You hear this shit Thomas? They got a damn carnival. Can you imagine a carnival back at St Josephs? Fucking food vendors would be getting snatched and ran and shit." He continued giggling, his high obviously hadn't worn off yet.
"Hush man, this could be important." Thomas spoke, quiet and sternly, scowling at his cousin.
"What's important is how buff our head teacher is. Check her out! Shit, I hope I get sent to her."
"They're called principles here. Now hush for a minute, you're attracting attention. You can run your mouth when we're dismissed any time now."
With that Thomas started looking around, trying to see if he could spot any familiar faces and trying to ignore Kas' continuous remarks.
