A Day's Gamble
folder
Original - Misc › -Slash - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
10
Views:
14,143
Reviews:
8
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
1
Category:
Original - Misc › -Slash - Male/Male
Rating:
Adult +
Chapters:
10
Views:
14,143
Reviews:
8
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
1
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The Author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
Chapter 4
4.
After a while Garcia doesn’t need me anymore. So, I duck out and begin to walk along the block. Every once in while nodding at someone I know. It is warmer than usual, but still cold as winter weather is allowed to be.
Our apartment is cold, quiet and quiet, but Nicolo’s cologne still hangs in the air. He’s good at what he does. Sells the products by making himself the product. Wears Maxison’s cologne and their clothes. He’s so shiny, so fresh, so sharp. They want to look like him. Nicolo will smile, and show them that one on one attention they can’t get anywhere else, make them think they’re special.
Then, they think they can have a piece of him.
That’s always been the problem.
On our walls, we’ve pictures covering the walls. He’s always been more ordered and into making this place a real home. Some of us, Lil Man and Princess, and then things I’ve made. I don’t like to brag; looking at the pictures though, I can see what Nicolo, Garcia, and Mrs. Vee, and old teachers, who hounded me day in and day out used to see.
Talent.
I’ve talent.
An artist’s eye with a writer’s sensibility.
That’s what a college recruiter said once. That school would have given me a full ride and extra money on the side. Don’t take it of course. How canI? It’s in every look that they’ve given me; looking at me like I’m a wild thing. Something dangerous, raw, and sharp around the edges. I scare them.
Like some vision of Christmas yet to come mixed in with a healthy dose of grim realism.
This is me being glib…Sometimes, glib equals truth.
For damn sure, I have ambition. I wouldn’t have gotten Nicolo if I’d been like every other dude on the block. On the wall closest to the window, there’s a picture I have painted of Nicolo. He never posed for me, simply lays asleep--unaware, tangled in our white sheets one hot night. Miserable is the easiest way to describe how the heat and the constant kicking of the twins make him. It is too hot for him to wear clothes. Those long caramel legs tangle in the sheets that wrap around his waist and across his swollen chest Nicolo’s body has become a canvas in caramel and white. His belly stands up high and proud. The haven of our babies shines in the moonlight.
I watch his sleep, committing the image to memory and paint my family as I see them. Nothing has ever been more beautiful.
No one’s ever called painting or art a hustle. I am taking care of my family. Always have been in the best way I know, in the only way that has never let me down. I’m doing the one thing that’s kept me together after everything else tried to take me apart.
You sell or be sold. My pops was a soldier, had believed he was fighting for a righteous cause. I’m a soldier too—a soldier for the streets. He dies in some jungle in a place that I can’t find on the map, leaving me and my Mom alone. She workes two jobs. When she is finally making headway, she’s diagnosed with stomach cancer.
I toss off my coat and fall across the bed. We have a nice set-up here; an apartment that isn’t too small yet, stuff that’s close to nice, almost enough money to not worry about things.
Under the floor boards beneath the bed, I keep a box. An old Air Jordan’s shoe box. It’s got everything. Everything that has ever mattered to me inside. My mom’s cross. My dad’s medals. The stick from the popsicle I was sucking the first time I saw Nicolo. A movie ticket from our first date. The button from my shirt the first time we made love. My mom’s bracelet from the hospital. The scarf she always wore to mass. The ring box. My dad’s ring—my ring. The first sonogram…
Plus, a smaller box. This one has a lock. This isn’t for anyone’s eyes but my own until the time comes. Twenty grand. Between the rest of the apartment, Garcia’s, and a bank two hours outside the City, I have a little over a hundred grand.
Crazy, I will put the money on top of a stack of pictures. They’re all of me and Nicolo. I love him so fucking much until it kills me at times. I want him and our kids to have everything.
I’m simply doing what I can
TBC
After a while Garcia doesn’t need me anymore. So, I duck out and begin to walk along the block. Every once in while nodding at someone I know. It is warmer than usual, but still cold as winter weather is allowed to be.
Our apartment is cold, quiet and quiet, but Nicolo’s cologne still hangs in the air. He’s good at what he does. Sells the products by making himself the product. Wears Maxison’s cologne and their clothes. He’s so shiny, so fresh, so sharp. They want to look like him. Nicolo will smile, and show them that one on one attention they can’t get anywhere else, make them think they’re special.
Then, they think they can have a piece of him.
That’s always been the problem.
On our walls, we’ve pictures covering the walls. He’s always been more ordered and into making this place a real home. Some of us, Lil Man and Princess, and then things I’ve made. I don’t like to brag; looking at the pictures though, I can see what Nicolo, Garcia, and Mrs. Vee, and old teachers, who hounded me day in and day out used to see.
Talent.
I’ve talent.
An artist’s eye with a writer’s sensibility.
That’s what a college recruiter said once. That school would have given me a full ride and extra money on the side. Don’t take it of course. How canI? It’s in every look that they’ve given me; looking at me like I’m a wild thing. Something dangerous, raw, and sharp around the edges. I scare them.
Like some vision of Christmas yet to come mixed in with a healthy dose of grim realism.
This is me being glib…Sometimes, glib equals truth.
For damn sure, I have ambition. I wouldn’t have gotten Nicolo if I’d been like every other dude on the block. On the wall closest to the window, there’s a picture I have painted of Nicolo. He never posed for me, simply lays asleep--unaware, tangled in our white sheets one hot night. Miserable is the easiest way to describe how the heat and the constant kicking of the twins make him. It is too hot for him to wear clothes. Those long caramel legs tangle in the sheets that wrap around his waist and across his swollen chest Nicolo’s body has become a canvas in caramel and white. His belly stands up high and proud. The haven of our babies shines in the moonlight.
I watch his sleep, committing the image to memory and paint my family as I see them. Nothing has ever been more beautiful.
No one’s ever called painting or art a hustle. I am taking care of my family. Always have been in the best way I know, in the only way that has never let me down. I’m doing the one thing that’s kept me together after everything else tried to take me apart.
You sell or be sold. My pops was a soldier, had believed he was fighting for a righteous cause. I’m a soldier too—a soldier for the streets. He dies in some jungle in a place that I can’t find on the map, leaving me and my Mom alone. She workes two jobs. When she is finally making headway, she’s diagnosed with stomach cancer.
I toss off my coat and fall across the bed. We have a nice set-up here; an apartment that isn’t too small yet, stuff that’s close to nice, almost enough money to not worry about things.
Under the floor boards beneath the bed, I keep a box. An old Air Jordan’s shoe box. It’s got everything. Everything that has ever mattered to me inside. My mom’s cross. My dad’s medals. The stick from the popsicle I was sucking the first time I saw Nicolo. A movie ticket from our first date. The button from my shirt the first time we made love. My mom’s bracelet from the hospital. The scarf she always wore to mass. The ring box. My dad’s ring—my ring. The first sonogram…
Plus, a smaller box. This one has a lock. This isn’t for anyone’s eyes but my own until the time comes. Twenty grand. Between the rest of the apartment, Garcia’s, and a bank two hours outside the City, I have a little over a hundred grand.
Crazy, I will put the money on top of a stack of pictures. They’re all of me and Nicolo. I love him so fucking much until it kills me at times. I want him and our kids to have everything.
I’m simply doing what I can
TBC