Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 451(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
An uncomfortable silence wedged its way between them. Legend had an urge for a cigarette, but Axel had struggled with quitting smoking for quite some time. After several attempts with patches, pills, and even hypnosis, he was finally able to cut it out for good. He’d been a nonsmoker for a little over eleven months, and was proud of it. Said he’d done it for his son…
I know I gotta bite the bullet, and I’m stalling. This’ll be the third time I talk about this, and I’m tired of it already. I feel like my head has been beat against a rock. It’s emotionally exhausting. Like, it doesn’t hurt me anymore to talk about it, but it’s draining all the same. It makes me a little queasy, and then, I have to go through the whole feelin’ of, ‘Is Axel going to think something strange about me?’ Shit like that. I know it might sound stupid, but I can’t help feelin’ this way.
Tellin’ my girl and my sister was different. They’re women. More sympathetic to things like that. Telling another man… shit… friend or not, it hits different.
Telling Axel was the most challenging door to open, for once it was unlocked, it could never be shut again. Bubbling fears took over his gut, the same feeling he’d had when he’d accidentally eaten expired mayo while in prison.
He’s waiting for me to start talking… What I wouldn’t do for a blunt right now. Shit!
He tapped the armrest and looked out the window. Sighing, he shook his head.
“Axel, I got somethin’ to tell you… about what you saw in my closet.”
“If it’s going to make you incriminate yourself, maybe you shouldn’t.”
“It could…” Legend tilted his head back, closed his eyes, and scratched his head. He could actually feel the loose, wavy pieces on top. I gotta get to the barber. I need a trim and a shapeup. Perhaps he’d do it himself. He wasn’t too bad with a pair of clippers—just preferred going to the professionals. “Before I get into this, do I have to worry about you being a snitch? You got wire taps on you?”
Axel shot him a glance and grimaced.
“That’s the stupidest shit you’ve ever asked me, and it’s the second time you’ve alluded to it.”
“You been ’round English too long, usin’ all these fancy words and shit lately, and I didn’t allude to a mothafuckin’ thing. I came on out and said it! Is you a snitch or not?”
“Don’t you do this shit! I hate when you do this. I told you that what you had going on in your apartment was strange. Disturbin’. Demented. It’s a fucking hit list. I meant what I said, too.”
“And I told you that you had a lot of fuckin’ nerve sayin’ that to me, considerin’ your own situation. Slingin’ bones ova here, when you standin’ in a whole graveyard. You got bodies, man. I wasn’t the one on the news after puttin’ two dudes in their Sunday’s best, casket fresh.”
“Oh, but it sure as hell is written in blood on your fifty-page prison record! Just ’cause your deeds didn’t make the ten o’clock news, it didn’t mean the shit didn’t happen, jackass!”
“You’re an entire Michael Jackson in the Thriller video, man! Out here settin’ fuckas on fire, too. Pyromaniac ass! Then you stood there and lit your cigarette on the flames. Also, you wanted to piss on Master’s dead body, and only didn’t ’cause you didn’t want to leave any DNA. But I’m disturbing? You got me fucked up!”
“All right, just knock it off! Let’s not get tuh fightin’ again!”
“Yeah, you didn’t like that, did you? How the tables got turned on yo’ bitch ass. Mr. Holier Than Thou. You and Caspian really been smellin’ y’all self lately. Need a mothafucka like me to bring you back down to Earth.”
Axel sighed and shook his head. “Regardless of all of that, I know you, Legend. You’re not groundless or foolish. There’s got to be a reason why you’d have three guys on a poster board, surrounded by candles, prayer cards, maps, quotes about murder, and death wishes written all over their photos. What gives?”
He swallowed and messed with his seatbelt, sitting up straighter. He could feel the tears coming before he even uttered the first word. The vulnerability was debilitating.
Is this what a man is? Am I any less of a man because of what happened to me? I know that’s not true. I can’t even believe I am sittin’ here thinking about this, but this shit is crazy. I know that’s bullshit. I couldn’t consent. I feel like my damn manhood is in question. It’s like sittin’ here with him, making those old tapes play in my mind again, where I felt like I had to show the world I was purely about pussy.